Ravenclaw's Chalice
by Starrynight-Blue and Gray
Summary: Beth Burke finds herself at Hogwarts after meeting a strange old man on Halloween. She has to discover how to use her new powers to acquire one of the Founders' Relics.
1. Chapter 1: Bet you didn't see that one

**Chapter One: Betcha didn't see _that_ one coming…**

Everything looked perfect; it had taken almost four months to complete but her Halloween costume looked great. She had thought about going as a Gryffindor but since her friend had decided to go as Hermione, Beth thought it would be a better idea to go as a different student from a different Hogwarts house. Her friend Alanna had suggested Luna Lovegood so that they would have a Ravenclaw in the group but Beth liked her auburn hair and she didn't want to go through the trouble of stripping it to dye it blonde. She would just go as a random Ravenclaw student and that was good enough for her since her costume looked great.

She put the finishing touches on it, grabbed her Hogwarts pillow case and hurried out the door. The cool October air made her shiver as she trotted up the street, looking for Alanna and the rest of the group. Compliments were exchanged as they met as well as several more ideas for just which Ravenclaw Beth could be impersonating.

"What about Padma?" Alanna suggested.

"My hair isn't black – Trick or Treat!" Beth said, greeting the woman at the door of their first house in the same breath.

"It's dark enough." Alanna said as they bounced down the steps and towards the next house.

"I'll just be me; nothing wrong with that, besides, no one's going to _ask_." Beth said.

"Come on, guys, just this one last house." Beth begged.

Alanna pouted. "No, I'm going to head home." Her statement was echoed by the rest of the group. They had been dragging behind for the last few blocks. "Most of the lights have gone out anyway. There are hardly enough houses left."

Beth looked up and down the street. It was true, on this street there was only one porch light glowing in the darkness.

"Go on, you can catch up with us." Alanna started away, the others trailing behind discussing the amounts of candy they had gathered.

Beth trotted up the walk, noting that the garden and grass didn't seem very well kept. It almost looked like the place had been deserted for a long time. She approached the door and rang the bell, staring at the dark, gaping windows. She stared at the door hard for a few moments. Did anyone actually live here? She started to get a little nervous. She couldn't remember this house at all. She was about to turn around and hurry after her friends when the door opened.

"Trick or Treat?" She said tentatively, half fearing to see who had answered the door. She looked up at a kindly looking old man in a long purple robe and half moon glasses. He looked oddly familiar.

"Ahh, and which student would you be?" He asked with a smile.

Beth almost couldn't answer. She wondered if this old man had read the books, or maybe he had just seen the movies. "He probably has grandchildren who love the books." She thought as she smiled back. "I'm just me." She said out loud. "Dressed up as a Ravenclaw student."

The old man's eyes twinkled. "It's a very good costume." He said dropping some candy and something else too quickly for Beth to see into her bag.

"Thank you." She was on the verge of asking him how he knew what she was dressed as when he pulled out a pocket watch and looked hard at it. "I know it's very late, but your light was still on…" Beth started in way of explanation.

"It's not terribly late," The old man said, "but you should probably be going."

"Yes, thank you." Beth said, turning away as the door closed and walking slowly back down the path. She reached into her bag to see what else the old man had dropped in there; it had looked too big to be candy.

She wasn't paying attention to where she was going and suddenly she had the feeling that she was falling. She cried out and looked up quickly; the world was spinning around her. She reached out to try and catch hold of something when she landed hard on a patch of grass. The world abruptly stopped spinning and everything looked different.

Beth stood up quickly. The first thing she noticed was that it was much warmer all of a sudden. It felt like a summer night instead of an autumn one. She was at the top of a hill on the sidewalk of a busy street but it wasn't the street she had been standing on a moment before. The cars were driving on the wrong side of the road and everyone had a different accent than she was used too. "Is that an English accent?" She wondered to herself as she walked slowly down the street.

"Oh my dear, you certainly do look lost!" An older woman wearing a long cloak walked up to her and smiled warmly. "Sent down early to do your school shopping?" Beth didn't get a chance to reply. "You just go straight down this road and go into the Leaky Cauldron." She pointed. "You can't miss it and you'll know what to do from there. I do recommend that you just get a room for the night; shops will be closing by now. Have a good year, dear."

Beth stared after the departing woman in confusion. The Leaky Cauldron, that wasn't a real place, was it? It was the only direction that she had so she started walking down the street. Perhaps she could at least find a phone to call home.

As she was walking she remembered that she had been looking in her Trick or Treat bag for the thing that the old man had dropped. Keeping on eye on the sidewalk she fished around and came out with two letters. The first was addressed with green ink and written in a flowing hand, the second was written in black ink in thin slanting writing. It was the first one, the one written in green ink that caught her attention. It looked familiar somehow. She tucked the other one back into the bag as she opened the first.

Hogwarts School  
_of_ Witchcraft _and_ Wizardry

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore  
(_Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,  
__Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards_)

Dear Miss Burke,

We are pleased to welcome you back to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1.

Yours sincerely,  
Minerva McGonagall,  
_Deputy Headmistress_

Beth gaped at the letter, stopping in her tracks to stare at the writing. She had to read several times before she believed that it was real and not some figment of her imagination. Hogwarts? This had to be some kind of joke, perhaps that old man had written them up for his grandchildren, but how would he have known her name? She read the letter one last time before finding the other sheet of paper that listed the supplies that she would need.

She folded them both back up and put them carefully into the bag. It just had to be some kind of strange joke. She dug around and found the other letter. This one was addressed to "Miss Beth Burke," she unfolded it.

Dear Miss Burke,

Welcome to London, I do hope the port key didn't jar you too badly. If you've read your letter I would like to personally welcome you to Hogwarts.

You will, of course be returning to the Ravenclaw house this year and we are expecting that you continue studying to take your animagus test.

Please come and see me once you've arrived, I have a very important matter to discuss with you. We will of course, continue our discourse on the Founders' relics.

I am yours most sincerely,  
Albus Dumbledore,  
_Headmaster_

Beth read this letter several times as well before she finally dropped it back into the bag. An animagus and in the Ravenclaw house, and everything was written as if she'd been attending Hogwarts all along. She shook her head and looked up and down the street for a payphone. It was a very good forgery, she had to admit that, and Alanna would find it pretty funny.

She paused in front of an old building that was nestled between two shops. A sign above the door advertised it as the Leaky Cauldron. Beth spent several minutes staring up at the sign in disbelief.

"I thought it was just a book…" she said quietly as she pushed open the door.

Tom the innkeeper gestured to her from behind the bar. "Come in, girl, it's late and I suppose you'll be wanting a room for the night."

"Uhh, yes…" she said, glancing around nervously.

"Did you have a reservation?" He asked as he stepped aside to allow one chair to float by him and turn itself over onto a table as a mop sped across the worn wooden floor.

"I don't think so…"

"What's your name?" Tom asked impatiently as a book settled in front of him with a thunk and a quill soared into his hand.

"Beth…um I mean, Beth Burke." She dared to step closer and try and read what was written.

"Beth Burke." Tom's quill flashed across the page. "Yes, I have you right here. Room 17 is all ready for you and your traveling case is waiting." He handed her a tiny brass key. "Up the stairs, on the right side."

Beth thanked him and walked slowly up the stairs. "It must be a dream, so I'll just go to sleep and when I wake up this will be back to normal."


	2. Chapter 2: Diagon Alley

**Chapter Two: Diagon Alley**

Beth woke up with the sun in her eyes and the sounds of many people talking in her ears. She opened her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling. She sat up in bed, the events of last night flooding back in a few moments. That old man had given her that letter and she'd somehow ended up in London and now she was waking up in a room at the Leaky Cauldron.

She stared around the room as she got slowly out of the bed. A maroon duffel bag was sitting on the table next to the bed. She yanked it open to discover a change of clothes, a toothbrush and assorted toiletries and a large, heavy looking gray key with a tiny piece of paper hanging from a gold string. She dumped the whole thing onto the bed and picked up the key. The tag had the number 497 written on one side and "Gringotts' Vault, for Beth Burke" on the other.

She stared at it hard, as if expecting it to disappear. She had her own vault? Beth shook her head and put it back down on the bed. Whatever was going on, it didn't seem to be a dream. "That means I'm really here, and I'm really going to Hogwarts." She murmured, knowing that she should've been more excited.

"But I don't have a wand…" she stared at the things now scattered across the bed. "I guess I'd better hurry up, I have a lot of shopping to do."

She got dressed quickly and ate a hurried breakfast. She followed a mother with two small children through the brick wall in the back and into Diagon Alley. She had to stop and stare around her as a place she'd only read about suddenly became reality in front of her eyes.

Her first stop was Gringotts' Bank. She was very surprised to learn that she had a rather sizable amount of money in her vault. It seemed strange and a bit too convenient but Beth wasn't really going to argue since she needed more than the regular amount of school supplies.

In fact Beth had to make two trips back to her room at the Leaky Cauldron with her bags and boxes before she stared down at the hastily scrawled list she had made at the bottom of the official list that had been in her letter.

"All that's left is my wand, pick up my new robes, and an owl if I have enough left." She hurried down the street towards Ollivander's shop; she'd been looking forward to this moment all day. She pulled open the door and stepped aside to allow a young man to exit in front of her.

"Umm, hello?" She called into the dim, dusty room. It seemed oddly empty; many of the shelves were empty.

"Good Afternoon," said an old man who was sorting a few small boxes into larger ones.

"Hi," Beth said brightly, brimming with excitement. "I'm here for a new wand."

Mr. Ollivander looked at her hard for a long time. "Well then, hold out your wand arm."

Beth did as she was asked and a small silver tape measure flew over and began to take measurements as Mr. Ollivander walked towards the dusty stacks and pulled a few boxes off the shelves. "That's enough." He called and the measure fell to the floor. Beth waited eagerly, staring at the boxes.

"Here, try this one, mahogany and unicorn hair, 10 inches." He handed her the wand. Beth had barely waved it when he took it away again. "No, no, how about this, ebony and dragon heartstring, 12 inches."

Beth took this wand and waved it but Ollivander snatched that one away just as quickly. "No, but let's try this one – Birch wood and a centaur's tail hair, 11 and ½ inches, odd combination but effective for Divination."

Beth's hand suddenly felt warm and she could barely contain a broad smile as she waved the wand and it produced copper colored sparks.

"Excellent!" Ollivander clapped his hands as he returned the wand to its box and wrapped it. "That will be seven Galleons, my dear."

Beth left the store at a happy jog, the box tucked safely under her arm. She was sure she had enough money left in her bag for an owl. She hurried up the street but paused in front of a shop that had a few cats sitting in one window and several rats dancing around in a cage in the other.

Beth watched the rats for a few moments before she wandered inside. It wasn't Eeylops Owl Emporium but perhaps she could find what she was looking for here. As she stepped towards the counter where a woman was bustling with her back to the door, one of the cats, a yearling with tortoise-shell coloring draped itself across her shoulders and purred.

Beth stared at the creature with a bemused smile. "I'm sorry; I was looking for an owl." She told the cat in a whisper.

The woman turned around and smiled. "Can I help you?" She looked down at Beth. "Ahh, I see you've found someone, that's Balboa."

"Um actually…" Beth began.

"You should be flattered dear; normally Balboa is all tooth and claw when it comes to strangers. You won't be needing much to take care of him, he's a pretty good hunter already…" she turned back to the shelves and pulled down a few boxes.

Beth stared at the cat that didn't appear to want to move from her shoulders. He purred and nuzzled her face with his own. "I guess you're better than an owl." She said, suddenly oddly attached to the cat.

She paid the woman and left the shop. She picked up her new robes before heading back to the Leaky Cauldron for dinner; Balboa never left her shoulders until she returned to her room.

"I really shouldn't be getting used to this. It's probably just some strange dream." She told the cat as she sorted her things into the large trunk she'd bought. The Ravenclaw crest had been emblazoned on the lid with her name underneath and Beth found that she was overly fond of the sight. "If it is a dream, it can go on for just a bit longer."


	3. Chapter 3: The Train

**Chapter 3: The Train**

Beth spent a few more days in Diagon Alley shopping for school supplies. She was getting increasingly nervous about going to Hogwarts as the days passed. Everyone reacted to her as if she'd always been here, even though she'd just arrived a few days ago. She'd already met a few of her classmates who had greeted her with warm smiles and idle talk about Transfiguration and how neat it was that Beth was going to be taking her animagus test once she got out of school.

Beth smiled back and tried to follow the conversations but it was apparent that either she had dreamt her other life or she had replaced a girl who looked, sounded, spoke like, and had the same name as she did. Beth knew she was going to have to find a way to fill those shoes and it would be a hard pair of shoes to fill. It seemed that she was very smart and good at Transfiguration and something of a hand at Divination.

Beth spent a great deal of time pouring over her textbooks. She'd bought all she would need for this year as well as several of the required books for younger students. Without regard for any Ministry people who might object, Beth started practicing magic. She was relieved that most of the basic charms seemed to come easily enough to her. She managed Lumos and Nox on her second try and Accio on her fourth.

She tried a few other charms with mixed success and felt brave enough to move onto Potions. She knew that she didn't have enough ingredients for some of the more advanced potions but she thought she could at least manage a few of the simple ones.

Her first try was a simple potion for curing boils and according to all the descriptions in the book that one came out ok, but then she moved onto another potion which ended disastrously.

Balboa yawned from where he was stretched out on the bed as smoke poured from what was left of her cauldron.

"This is going to be terrible." She said to the cat who was taking extreme interest in one paw. "How am I supposed to survive Professor Snape's class if I can't do the easy potions?"

Balboa didn't seem inclined to answer as he rolled over onto his back and stuck his paws in the air. She sighed as he stared at her with his luminous yellow eyes, and all of a sudden the answer flashed into her mind. _"Don't add the wormwood while the bubbles are purple, you silly girl."_ Beth stared at Balboa who started purring loudly.

"I'll try that." She said slowly. The answer had been so simple, of course you didn't add the wormwood while the bubbles were purple, any fool knew that you waited until they had turned clear, or at the very least a light pink! She shook her head to clear it from all the strange thoughts. How could she possibly have known that? "I'll just move onto Transfiguration then." She muttered.

Transfiguration proved to be too easy. She turned a match stick into a needle on her first try and everything she tried after that came easily. "I can see why I have a knack for this." She told Balboa as the borrowed teapot, now a small, rather dull looking tortoise, crawled slowly across the bed. She waved her wand and it morphed back into a chipped grey teapot that she had borrowed from Tom, the innkeeper.

"I guess all I have left is to try Divination." Beth said as she checked her list.

The day of the train ride to Hogwarts dawned clear and cool. Beth packed up her trunk with her school robes on top and joined a few other students as they piled onto the Knight Bus and headed towards King's Cross Station.

She heaved her trunk onto the bus and pushed it into the rack. It was difficult to move around once the bus started to move but Beth managed to get herself into her seat and pry Balboa painfully from her shoulders and settle him onto her lap. She scanned the other armchairs for the faces of the other Ravenclaws she'd seen in Diagon Alley but she couldn't find anyone that she recognized.

It was pretty daunting to be sitting on a bus full of people that up until a few days ago had been just letters on a page in a book. It was downright unnerving to be going to Hogwarts where she was apparently well known. However she had very little time to think once the bus really started moving. She clutched the arms of her seat as Balboa howled and dug his claws into her legs as the bus jolted into its full speed sending the armchairs sliding across the floor and slamming into each other like bumper cars at a carnival.

The Knight Bus finally deposited them between several other buses at King's Cross Station. The other students chatted cheerfully as they traded potions for bruises, claimed carriages, loaded their trunks, bags, and animal cages and headed towards the entrance to the station. Beth tried not to lag behind, pushing the luggage cart into the station and following the other students through the barrier between platforms nine and ten.

Beth stared around at the platform and a lump settled in her stomach. It was bustling with students and she forgotten that she would need to share a compartment. She looked up at the big clock and saw she had nearly twenty minutes before the train departed. Maybe she could get in and find one before anyone else, that way anyone who knew her would find her instead of her having to find them. She pushed her cart up to one of the doors and hauled her things onto the train.

Puffing and straining she managed to get her trunk into the luggage rack of an empty compartment and settled into her seat with Balboa in her lap. She eased the curtain on the window back a bit so she could stare out at the throng of students and parents milling around on the platform. She spotted four heads of flaming red hair which she assumed were the Weasleys and a small crowd of students hovering around one student who was trying to make his way towards the train.

"That must be Harry Potter." She told Balboa as she tried to relax and not get up every few minutes and peer frantically down the corridor. She nearly jumped out of her skin when the door of her compartment slid open and two girls walked in, dragging their trunks. Beth got up to help them put their trunks into the overhead racks.

"Thanks, Beth," said the first girl. She had long brown hair hanging down around her lean face.

"You're here early," said the second, she had dark brown, almost black hair that was tied back into a pony tail.

"I wanted to get an empty compartment." Beth said with a nervous smile.

"You got a cat!" The second girl squealed. "You'd been talking about it for ages! Look, Abby, she finally managed to get a cat!"

"His name's Balboa." Beth said, relieved that she at least knew one name now. Abby was the girl with the lean face and brown hair, hopefully she would be able to remember that.

"It's nice not to have to share a compartment with Luna again this year, I mean, I don't mind her." The second girl was saying quickly as she changed the subject once again. "But that damn magazine, Quibbler, is it?" Beth and Abby nodded slowly. "Yeah," the second girl continued. "It's just so far _out _there!"

Abby laughed as she sat down. Beth was relieved as the two girls started a discussion about their summer months. Beth answered truthfully about most of her summer, almost forgetting that along with getting dropped into the Harry Potter books, she'd gone back in time nearly two months.

"It must be really something living with muggles." The second girl said, her name was Helen, and the first girl's full name was Abigail. They had been joined by two others, a dark skinned girl named Hestia and a rather pale skinny blonde girl named Jonquil.

"You get used to it." Beth said with a nervous grin.

Beth was getting more and more comfortable as time passed and green fields zoomed by through the windows and so when the food cart went by Beth treated everyone to a pumpkin pasty and a round of chocolate frog cards.

"Give your cards to me, if you don't want 'em, my little brother collects them." Hestia said, as she gathered up her own and Abby's.

Beth debated if she wanted to start her own collection. "Do you happen to know which one's your brother has already? I think I'd like to start a small collection."

Hestia nodded. "Oh yeah, sure he tells me all the time." She tossed several back at Beth. "I need to keep a few doubles through, he trades them around."

"You're too nice to your brother." Jonquil said handing over her own cards as Hestia shrugged again.

Beth sorted through the small pile of cards. Some of the pictures smiled, others waved, one or two winked, and a few had left their frames. She'd really be able to prove that she'd been here now, and if she ever got home she could show everyone… Her thoughts paused abruptly as a cold chill crept down into her stomach. What if she never got home? She stared at Balboa who was staring back up at her purring as usual. She quickly pushed the thought out of her head. Of course she would get home, and if she'd gone back in time one month to get here surely on the way back she could go back like she'd spent no time at all. A year might here might only be a few minutes or a few hours. Balboa purred louder and Beth rejoined the conversation which was still centered on Chocolate Frog cards.

It seemed like no time at all before they were all changing into their school robes and leaving the train to board the strange horseless carriages that carried them to the castle. Beth stuck close to the Hestia who was still arguing with Jonquil on whether or not Hestia was being too nice to her little brother.

On the train classes had seemed a comfortable and distant thing and now that they were approaching the castle and the welcome feast the prospect of classes not to mention her meeting with Dumbledore were all suddenly frightening realities. She had decided, at some point, to simply explain that she had no idea why she was here but she wasn't who everyone thought she was and that it was all some grand mistake. Now that she was greeting more and more of her classmates she was beginning to wonder if Dumbledore would even believe her.

As they took their places at the Ravenclaw table Abby related a story from last year in which Beth featured prominently.

"It was so scary! I mean I thought it was detention for sure, but then Beth just transfigured a dust bunny into a real rabbit and Mrs. Norris chased _it_ instead of us!"

Everyone laughed but Beth just gave them a distracted and worried smile. She had heard several stories already about what she had been like in her first year, how cute and eager she had been and how easily she had picked up magic.

Beth looked down at her place at the table, secretly wishing that she could skip the Sorting and get straight onto dinner, because she could just nod and smile with food in her mouth; it would save her from answering questions. There wasn't any food on the shining clean plate but instead a folded piece of parchment written in a familiar slanting hand.

Miss Burke,

As soon as you've settled into your room, please come to my office.

Albus Dumbledore

Beth swallowed hard and stuffed the note into her robes before any of her classmates saw it. She managed to distract herself a little bit during the Sorting by cheering for the students as they were sorted into Ravenclaw. Then during the feast she distracted herself by enjoying the wealth of delicious food and then deserts that appeared on the table.

Once the feast was over she listened half-heartedly to the announcements and then followed Hestia and Abby to the Ravenclaw tower. She did her best to pick out landmarks and then listened very closely for the password that would allow her entrance through one of four identical doors set into a thick stone wall. It seemed that when the password was changed the door that opened also changed and you had to be quick since they had a tendency to snap closed in a split second.

Beth followed Hestia up the stairs and into their round room where Helen and Jonquil were already sitting on their beds chatting about the upcoming term. Beth took a few moments to arrange her quills and a few other things in her nightstand while Balboa washed himself on her bed. She shuffled through her trunk several times, moving her socks from one side to the other until she felt she couldn't put it off any longer. She swallowed hard and turned back towards the door, staring at it as if it would take her hand off in a moment.

"Where are you going?" Helen asked as Beth took her first few steps towards the door.

"Uhh," Beth tried to think of an excuse. "I have to go speak with Headmaster Dumbledore." She said after a few moments of fast thinking that yielded nothing.

"Why do you have to speak to the Headmaster?" Jonquil was digging through her trunk and piling her schoolbooks on the floor.

"I need to talk about some of my classes." Beth said almost hopefully. Balboa finished washing himself and trotted across the room and stood, waiting, at Beth's feet.

Helen shrugged. "I can't imagine you can get anything changed _this_ late."

Beth shrugged as she opened the door. "It's not about changing things." Beth said, "I just need to straighten a few things up." She said quickly and hurried out the door, down the stairs, through the blue walled common room and into the hallway.

She stared up and down the corridor for a few minutes before she realized that she had no idea where Dumbledore's office was located in relation to where she was now. Balboa started trotting away and Beth followed him.

"I suppose you'll lead me to the kitchens first." She told the cat as he trotted in front of her with his tail held high. Beth followed anyway, staring at the moving portraits that they passed. A suit of armor saluted her smartly as it clanged by and a few straggling students nodded pleasantly as they headed towards their rooms.

Beth did her best to smile as a few students greeted her by name. Beth stumbled through small talk and chats about summer vacation, making a mental note to try and hear their names but soon she had too many to even begin to remember. She heaved a heavy sigh as she nearly tripped over Balboa who had suddenly stopped.

Beth looked around and noticed that they were standing in front of a statue of an extremely ugly stone gargoyle. She stared at it in disbelief for a few moments as she wondered how Balboa had managed to lead her straight here when the statue leapt to one side and allowed a stone door to open.

Hagrid, the giant ground's keeper was ducking through the archway. "Thank yeh, Headmaster." He said. "Get on it righ' away, I will." He noticed Beth just in time to avoid knocking her down. "Sorry, didn' see yeh there."

"Ahh, Miss Burke." Dumbledore was standing on the stairs just inside the door. He beamed at them both. "Yes, Hagrid, I'll talk with you more in a few days." He waved the giant man down the corridor. "Please come in, Miss Burke." Dumbledore smiled and waved her towards the stairs.


	4. Chapter 4: The Headmaster’s Office

**Chapter 4: The Headmaster's Office**

Beth swallowed hard and followed Dumbledore up the stairs and into his office. It was full of the gentle noise of small silver things and the murmur of the portraits on the walls. Beth stared around for a few moments before she sank into the chair across from Dumbledore's huge claw-footed desk.

"Welcome back, Miss Burke." He said with a smile as he took his chair and folded his hands on his desk. "And I see you have a cat." He was looking at Balboa who had been staring at Fawkes, the brilliant red and gold phoenix. Fawkes did not seem troubled by the intent gaze at all.

"Yes, that's Balboa. You, uh, you wanted to see me, Headmaster?" Beth murmured trying not to stare at Fawkes who was shaking his wings and pruning his feathers on his perch.

"Yes, I wanted to continue our conversation on the Founders' Relics by bringing your attention to an interesting bit that we just uncovered."

Beth sat up a little straighter and tried to look interested, while she searched her mind for anything she knew about the Founders' Relics. She knew about Gryffindor's sword and Slytherin's locket, so of course there had to be other Relics. Dumbledore slid an old piece of parchment across the desk. "Please take a look."

Beth picked up the faded piece of paper carefully as Balboa jumped into her lap as if he were trying to get a better look as well. Most of the ink was so faded that she could only distinguish a few words, but the document appeared to be a letter from Rowena Ravenclaw to Helga Hufflepuff talking about some kind of cup and how it was going to be hidden.

"We were correct to continue our research by going through the Hogwarts' archives of the Founders' letters." Dumbledore said. "I asked Madame Pince to take on the task this summer and she turned up a number of interesting letters; this is just one of them."

Beth suddenly remembered a great deal about the four Founders and how they had been searching out special relics to assure that they weren't being used by You-Know-Who. "Have you been able to discover where it's been hidden?" She asked, suddenly excited that all her hard work and research was going to pay off. _"I'll finally get something to show for all those hours in the library!"_ She thought excitedly for a moment before she felt confused. She hadn't been spending long hours in the library, she'd been at home, making her Halloween costume, but somehow making a costume seemed like some sort of strange dream and being in the library making up excuses to stay long after her friends had left was real.

"I have reason to believe that it is hidden within the school but I have no way of knowing if he managed to remove it when he was a student here. He is believed to have possession of Helga Hufflepuff's cup but we are still unsure about Ravenclaw."

Beth nodded slowly, her hopes suddenly falling again as she tried to decipher more of the writing.

"I intend to try and make the ink more readable with a few spells that Madame Pince thinks will work." Dumbledore continued. "I cannot believe that the Founders left their things unguarded. I think there is much more to learn from these letters. It is possible that Tom Riddle was unable to secure the cup while he was here."

Beth murmured in agreement, squinting at the parchment. "I have the feeling that something will be guarding it." She looked up and Dumbledore was looking speculative.

"Did you manage to discover anything about what the Ravenclaw relic might be?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "I have not but I haven't yet read through all of the letters and other materials that Madame Pince had provided for me."

"Could there still be a chance that You-Know-Who doesn't have it yet?" Beth asked hopefully.

"Perhaps, but we need to be able to read more of these letters first. I shall have them back on one week. Shall we meet again after dinner next Wednesday?"

Beth left the office feeling as if she had to head back to the library and dig up that book she had been reading at the end of last term. She shook her head hard and looked down at Balboa who was trotting along next to her.

"This can't be right!" She told the cat who flicked his tail but otherwise ignored her. Beth sighed as she headed back towards her room. "Maybe it will make more sense in the morning."

The only thing that really made sense in the morning was the fact that Beth found it very easy to fit in at Hogwarts. Everything she had learned seemed to be coming back to her and she even made it down to the Great Hall for breakfast on her own.

The classes proved to be even easier to get used too. Everything she studied simply popped into her head when she needed it.

"It's almost a little too easy." She told Balboa. Every hour that passed made her more and more certain that she had simply dreamt that Halloween night and the strange old man who had greeted her at the door. "It was Dumbledore of course," she told Balboa in-between one of her classes, "its funny how I dreamt about him and Halloween, I haven't been trick or treating since I came to Hogwarts."

The week went by very quickly as Beth slipped into the routine of classes, homework, and sneaking off to the Library to do more research. She poured through books on Hogwarts' history but every new lead she encountered turned out to be a dead end except for one important point. She wrote it down carefully, Dumbledore would certainly be interested to hear what she had discovered.

She ran down the hallway, skidding to a halt in front of the stone gargoyle. "Chocolate Frogs!" She panted. The gargoyle looked a bit startled as it jumped off its perch and Beth hurried through the door, taking the steps two at a time until she came to the door of Dumbledore's office. She took a deep breath and managed to knock without pounding on the wood. She barely waited to hear a voice that asked her to enter and burst through into the round office.

"Headmaster!" She panted, still unable to catch her breath. Beside her, Balboa sat regally, not looking the least bit tired.

"Right on time." Dumbledore said with a smile. "Have a seat."

Beth collapsed into the chair and pulled a folded piece of paper from her robe. She handed it to Dumbledore who unfolded it carefully. "I found that in one of the Hogwarts' History books." She said, slowly managing to catch her breath. "It suggests that Ravenclaw's relic is the Chalice and Hufflepuff's relic is actually a shield of some sort."

Dumbledore adjusted his spectacles as he read down the hastily scribbled words. "Hmm, that would suggest that Voldemort does not in fact have Hufflepuff's cup, if this is correct."

Beth nodded fervently. "And we still have a chance to get all the relics together!"

Dumbledore looked thoughtful. "The only problem, Beth, is the letters of both Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff. They all seem to suggest that Helga's relic is in fact a cup. It could be that the author of the history you were reading was mistaken." Beth's hopes fell once again but Dumbledore continued. "We must not discard anything yet, however, I have some letters that I have not read yet. I shall entrust you to reading them before our next meeting. We shall compare our findings then."

Beth took the packet of letters and nodded slowly. "Of course, Headmaster."

"Don't neglect your studies, however." He warned as he showed her out the door of his office.

It was hard not to neglect her studies when she had a whole packet of letters to read. Anyone of them could have the answer to the riddle of the Founders' Relics and what would happen once someone managed to get them together.

The letters though were, in short, utterly devoid of anything useful. They were long epistles from Rowena to Helga or Godric about the formation of a school and how well her students were managing today or how hard it was to hide their comings and goings from the non-magical folk. One letter from Rowena to Godric spent four pages expounding on why they all needed to move their schools to a central location away from and totally hidden from muggles.

Beth tossed another letter irritably across her bed. The curtains on her four poster were drawn and she could barely seen but for the tiny light of her wand. Balboa batted playfully at the paper as it floated down onto the bed. There just _had _to be something to what she had discovered in that history book! If Hufflepuff's Relic was a shield it meant that You-Know-Who had a fake relic and it could mean that he hadn't actually managed to get _any _of the relics!

"It would mean all his Horcruxes would be useless, at least according to that book about them I found last term. The items need to have a special meaning and if he hadn't managed to get the relics then the items are fakes and they have no meaning."

Balboa yawned and stretched out on the foot of her bed, eyes starting to close as if he were about to settle to sleep.

Beth sighed and gathered the letters she had already read and stuffed them back into the envelope that Dumbledore had given her and then started to sort through the rest. There was one, written in green ink that caught her eye. She picked it up and held her wand close. Her eyes got wider and wider as she read.

It was a letter to Rowena from Salizar in which the Slytherin founder complained about the lengthy and time consuming spells that Rowena was insisting that they all cast around their new school to keep it safe from the eyes of muggles, who Salizar noted: "Wouldn't see a hippogriff if it bit them." However he also complained about the idea to install a vault at the center of the castle. He claimed that an idea for a chamber of secrets was his own invention for his own students and powerful spells that he would have no other wizard except a pure blood learn. "I will build my chamber, Rowena, and you may build yours, if you wish, but expect no aid from me."

Beth's hands shook as she read over the letter again. It didn't state directly that the relics were hidden there but it did state that there was another hidden chamber in Hogwarts. She rummaged through her papers for the map of Hogwarts that she had used her last Copy Quill to make. She unrolled it and searched for a likely place the vault would've been hidden. She had already marked with a red x where she believed the Chamber of Secrets had been located based on everything she had been able to hear.

There didn't seem to be any large spaces that were not accounted for but magic could do wonderful things with very small spaces. She made a few notes on the map before she went back to the pile of unread letters. She didn't find anything else of interest and disappointed she went to sleep.

The next day was the first of a Hogsmede weekend. Beth wanted to stay behind but her four friends wouldn't hear of her spending a Hogsmede weekend locked up in the library, no matter how important Beth insisted it was. Knowing when she was beaten, Beth joined Hestia, Jonquil, Abby, and Helen as they rode the carriages down to the little village. Beth couldn't keep her mind off the package of letters that waited up in her room.

The other girls chatted about classes and what they intended to do in the little town before they had to head back up to school. There were plans for hot mugs of butter beer after they had bought more copy quills, boxes of chocolates and fudge from Honeydukes and Hestia wanted a new winter cloak and scarf since both of hers were thin and worn with age. They tried to ignore the presence of Aurors and the teachers around them as they made their way through the too-silent streets. Beth had almost forgotten about the war, but she knew it had never actually left her mind. The thought of death had always been at the back of her mind where she had pushed it trying to ignore it by throwing herself into her research and studies.

Beth shook her head to push dark thoughts out of her mind and tried to join in the conversation which was currently centered on the fact that Hestia wanted to buy a deep red scarf and Jonquil was insisting that she get one in the "proper colors" blue or copper. Beth sighed and waited through the inevitable argument.

Worn out by walking through the snowy streets after a day of shopping the girls finally headed into Honeydukes shop which was less crowded than it should've been. Beth ignored the argument over Hestia's new red scarf, hat and matching mittens and concerned herself with picking out several bars of chocolate and a pound of honey walnut fudge. She paid for her own things and offered to wait near the door since although Hestia was now ignoring Jonquil, Jonquil didn't seen inclined to stop pushing her point.

Beth chuckled and looked out the window, looking forward to a nice hot mug of butter beer at the Three Broomsticks. She was pulled out of her thoughts when a tall thin woman with her cloak wrapped tightly around her hurried past the window. Beth watched her with a frown, from underneath her cloak, Balboa hissed and Beth shivered as something cold passed over her.

It wasn't odd to see people hurrying through the streets with their cloaks drawn up around them but there was something about this woman that made Beth suspicious.

"I'll meet you all at the Three Broomsticks!" She called over her shoulder before she rushed out the door and followed the woman through the slippery streets.

She was careful to maintain a good distance from the hurrying woman but was surprised as the woman hurried out of the town and up a snow laden path towards the woods. Beth stopped at the edge of the line of buildings, pretending to be contemplating something in the shop window. She wanted to keep following the woman, but it would be difficult to hide in the wide open, not to mention that she was a black and grey cloak against the white snow.

She pulled out her wand and changed the colors on her cloak to a silvery white to blend in better with the high snow drifts and trudged through the roaring wind and drifting snow after the retreating figure.


	5. Chapter 5: Silver Falcon

**Chapter 5: Silver Falcon**

It didn't take long for Beth to get very cold crouching in the snow every time the woman stopped to look around and holding her breath as she transfigured herself to look like part of a snow covered tree or boulder. She considered going back when the cloaked woman was joined by several other figures that hurried into a cave.

Beth hurried up to the entrance which was tall enough to admit a rather large person. She slipped inside, grateful to at least be out of the wind and quickly changed the color of her cloak back to its black and grey with a bit of dust to keep her hidden. She crouched behind an outcropping that was just inside the cave entrance as the woman began to speak.

"Have you been able to find it?"

"No, all the passage ways are protected by passwords!" said a voice that sounded all too familiar but she didn't have time to consider it.

"I thought he was wrong for this job, Bellatrix, let him get back to the job that our Lord gave him. This is supposed to be _your_ assignment!"

Beth stopped breathing. Bellatrix! That could mean no one else but Bellatrix Lestrange and that meant that she was listening to a meeting of Death Eaters!

"And how am _I_ supposed to get into the damn school!" Bellatrix said hotly. "It's better to let the boy figure out anything that he can!"

"I did find a secret passage," said the familiar voice. Beth strained to try and remember who it belonged to. "I think it may lead someplace that could at least give me a clue but I haven't gotten the chance."

"Get permission from Severus to read the books on the restricted shelves, there may be something there concerning the make up of the castle."

There was the sound of shoes scuffing over stone and the voices were suddenly closer. Beth panicked, if she moved now, she would surely be caught but she couldn't remain where she was hiding because they would be sure to see her once they got close. She clasped her wand tightly and tried to remain calm so she could think clearly. Balboa chose that moment to wriggle out of her grasp and dash across the drifts, vanishing in a streak of color and flying snow.

"What was that?" a voice inside demanded and footsteps began to run towards her.

Beth panicked and dove after her cat but instead of tumbling into the snow she suddenly felt like she was contorting and then she was flying. She flapped her wings and landed in a tree a few feet from the cave entrance. She gave a loud call and looked down as three people rushed out of the cave.

"It was just a damn bird." Bellatrix said, pointing her wand at Beth. "Let's hurry before someone notices that you're missing."

"I heard a cat though." The shortest figure was looking around frantically.

"There's no cat, just that damn bird, oh put your wand away, Bellatrix, if you kill that bird every wizard in the ministry will be up here before you can blink!" The tallest figure started walking towards the village.

Bellatrix threw back her head and glared up at Beth but tucked her wand away and stalked after the tall, still hooded man. The three figures soon disappeared behind the drifts. Beth watched them go, turning her head to one side to get a better view. What had just happened? It was suddenly hard to think straight and her eyes kept darting to the moving bits of snow that were shifting below her. She turned her head to try and get a look at herself.

She saw snowy grey and white wings and sharp talons that clung to a thin branch. It was suddenly clear. She had managed her animagus transformation! She was some kind of bird! She flapped her wings in sudden amazement when she felt like she was being stretched and the branch suddenly gave away beneath her new weight and she fell through the tree with a crash and into the deep snow.

She looked down at her gloved hands in amazement. "I did it!" She scrambled up and looked around. "Balboa?" She hoped the Death Eaters hadn't seen her cat. The cat appeared a moment later, shaking the snow out of his fur. "Don't ever do that again!" Beth said to the serene yellow-eyed stare. "Did you see, Balboa? I did it!"

Balboa purred and looked very satisfied.

"Now I just have to remember how I did it." She said, thinking back. It had been a strange shrinking sensation. She tried to remember what had triggered it. "I was scared because the Death Eaters…" Beth looked up, her amazement and pride at her achievement dimming. "I've got to report this to Dumbledore right away. There's a student working for the Death Eaters! It must be Malfoy!" She gathered up Balboa and hurried towards the village.

Hestia, Jonquil, Helen, and Abby were waiting for her at the Three Broomsticks.

"What happened, Beth?" Hestia asked as she sat down. "Get lost in the snow?"

"We were worried!" Helen said. "I mean, you said you would meet us here and then you weren't here! The way you just dashed out of Honeydukes! I wanted to go and get a teacher…"

"And Helen worries too much." Hestia continued. "Really, where did you get off to? We had the damnedest time holding Helen back."

"Sorry." Beth said with a sheepish smile. "I saw some books and I got all caught up." It was a total lie but they all believed it.

"I've got your bag anyway." Jonquil handed her a brown bag emblazoned with Honeydukes in gold. "You left it on the counter."

"Oh, thanks!" Beth said. She'd totally forgotten about her chocolate.

"You left your Quills in my bag; we can sort them out when we get back." Abby said taking a deep drink of butter beer.

"Thanks, guys." Beth said with a smile. "I didn't mean to worry you." She accepted a mug of butter beer gratefully.

Helen sighed loudly. "I guess it's alright, just don't run off like that again. We're all supposed to stay together. We can't afford to lose House Points."

Jonquil rolled her eyes behind her mug and Beth swallowed a giggle in a gulp of butter beer.

Beth wanted to report what she had heard to Dumbledore but the Headmaster wasn't in his office. Beth contemplated the short conversation that she had heard back to her room. Draco Malfoy with the help of who knew how many other Slytherins was looking for the Founders' Relics. She hadn't noticed anything strange in the library but then again she had been so absorbed in her own research she hadn't noticed much of anything.

Beth suddenly felt troubled. What if the Slytherins had been spying on her and then reading the books she had read? She looked at Balboa, but he wasn't paying any attention to her. He was walking purposefully towards the Ravenclaw tower. She couldn't put a trace spell on the books since Madame Pince had probably been handling them and there was no telling how many other people had touched the books in the meantime.

"I have no way of knowing how much Draco knows." She said mournfully as she spoke the password and dove through the second door as it swung open.

Beth spent most of the evening in the Common Room with Hestia pouring over their Ancient Runes homework. She really wanted to tell her friends that she had managed the transformation but if she did they would send her away to take the test and that could take months! There were a dozen tests and then a hearing at the Ministry. It was best if she kept it a secret for now, especially since she wasn't sure if she was going to be able to do again.

She was torn between wanting to practice the transformation and reading more of those letters that Dumbledore had given to her. She finally feigned exhaustion and rushed upstairs and onto her bed. She pulled the curtains closed and began sorting through the letters that she still hadn't read. Draco and the other Slytherins knew nothing about these letters unless they were spying on Dumbledore's office and Beth doubted that they had the means to do that. Practicing her transformation could wait, she had to get to the relics before the Death Eaters did!

The first few letters revealed nothing. They were missives from Rowena to traveling students warning them to keep themselves hidden from non-magic users or to take care when using little-traveled roads. She tucked them away in the packet with the others and picked up another, holding her wand close and doing her best not to make too much noise.

Her eyes widened as she read down the page. This letter wasn't from any of the Founders; it appeared to be from a retired headmaster of Hogwarts to a newly instated one. "I advise you to take great care in keeping the school and its grounds safe. I myself uphold the decision to make it impossible to Apparate on the Grounds." Beth flicked her wand down the page and brought her face closer, straining to read the words in quickly fading light as her friends put out the candles and went to bed. The thick royal blue curtains around her bed blocked any moonlight or starlight that would've seeped through the windows. "Furthermore, I urge you to protect the Vault."

Beth's hands started to shake. "You are well aware that the treasures within are both powerful and important. If any of those things should fall into wrong or inexperienced hands I tremble to think what would become of us all. It is the same with the Salizar's Chamber; it must remain closed and locked. Under no circumstances must it be opened and the beast sleeping there allowed to awaken."

Beth read the letter at least four times before she set it on top of the first letter that she had discovered. "I was right!" She told Balboa who looked a bit annoyed at being woken from his sleep. "There's a vault in Hogwarts someplace and the Death Eaters are trying to find it too! That means that there must be powerful magic in there! It's probably the Relics!"

Balboa yawned. Beth quickly read through the other letters. There were a few other mentions of a secret vault that was different from the Chamber of Secrets but there was still no clue as to its location. There were several more letters, some between teachers and the Headmaster at the time debating on the location of the vault and what kind of magic kept it sealed. She unrolled her map of Hogwarts once again and studied it intently.

"Salizar wasn't happy when Rowena suggested that it be built and the castle has changed a lot over the years, yet Salizar hid the Chamber in a bathroom and it could only be opened by someone who could speak Parseltongue." She thought as she tried to guess where the vault might be hidden. "It could be near this tower." She murmured, placing a small black X near the base of the Ravenclaw tower. "But if the other Founders agreed to help her…" She traced a line from each of the houses except for Slytherin and placed an X where the lines met. "It might be at some central location. That letter said that Rowena wanted to build the vault in the center of the castle."

Beth rubbed her eyes and yawned. It was getting late and she had class early tomorrow morning. She only four more days until her next meeting with Dumbledore but she was already bursting to tell him about what she had discovered. She wondered excitedly what he had managed to uncover in the letters that he had read.


	6. Chapter 6: Godric and Helga’s Epistle

**Chapter 6: Godric and Helga's Epistle**

Beth was very tired the next morning but somehow she managed to get through History of Magic without falling asleep.

"Why are you so tired?" Hestia asked her as they left the classroom. "You went to bed so early last night."

Beth shrugged, still unwilling to share tell her friends about the Relics. Dumbledore had told her to keep it a secret. "I didn't sleep very well, I'm ok though."

Hestia shrugged. "Not like you to nearly fall asleep in class."

"Not like any Ravenclaw to fall asleep in class." Beth corrected with a small smile.

Hestia chuckled. "Have fun peering into the future. I've got to get to Muggle Studies."

Beth climbed up the ladder into Professor Trelawney's Divination class. There were very few students in the advanced class. Pavarti from Gryffindor was there, two girls from Slytherin, and a cheery girl from Hufflepuff. Beth took her usual table by herself and did her best to ignore the slightly odd smell from the incense as she unpacked her crystal ball.

It wasn't really surprising that so few had made it this far, either you had the talent or you didn't, although Beth suspected that the two Slytherin girls had more imagination than insight into the future. Beth uncovered her crystal ball as Professor Trelawney invited them to begin their gazing.

Beth watched as the clouds in the crystal slowly parted. _"Does Draco know about the Vault?"_ She thought hard as she watched the swirling mist. Colored shapes appeared that slowly formed Draco's figure. He was walking quickly through one of the corridors of Hogwarts counting doors and statues as he walked.

Beth bit her lip. Did it mean that Draco was hot on her trail or that he was hopelessly lost and trying every secret passage that he could discover? She cleared her mind again and the image vanished back into the mist. "The only trouble is I don't know where the vault is either." She tried to re-center her mind but she was too distracted by the thought of the Death Eaters getting the relics to scry anymore.

She was about to give up completely when a strange feeling came over her and all of a sudden she saw herself walking through a dim hallway. The floor opened wide into pits every few feet and so she shrank and changed into a white and grey falcon that flew easily over the gaps and then up a vertical tunnel.

Just as quickly as the vision had begun, it ended, and Beth was staring down into her foggy crystal ball. Underneath the table, Balboa purred softly and rubbed against her legs. "It was a vision? A vision of the vault?" Beth wondered to herself, barely able to listen as Professor Trelawney assigned them homework and told them to bring their best tea cups with them for a deeper study into reading tea leaves and the significance of using tea that contained flower petals.

Beth hurried through the hallways to the Great Hall where she ate quickly before rushing back up to her room. She just _had_ to know if Draco had any idea where the vault was or if he even knew one existed. She wracked her brains for a way she could discover how much Draco knew as she rushed up the stairs. She couldn't think of anything that would get her a solid answer, except for giving him Verita Serum and trying get him alone long enough to learn the truth.

She finally sighed and gave up trying to think of ways to sneak into the Slytherin common room that didn't involve polyjuice potion and Slytherin girls into broom closets. She dropped her bag onto the floor and pulled the package of letters out of the inside pocket where she'd kept them hidden. She quickly sorted them into read and unread piles and immediately started to read them again.

There were several more letters from students to Rowena or Helga about their classes or the other wizards that they were meeting in their travels but nothing concerning the vault. Beth was about to give up and get ready for her next class when she found the letter she had been looking for, actually she found two letters that said almost exactly what she wanted them to say.

The first letter was from Helga Hufflepuff extolling the genius of Rowena's idea to build a vault. "A place for our spells so the books will not be lost or destroyed. A place for powerful artifacts so they might not be used by unwary wizards! Rowena, it is a wonderful idea." Beth almost cheered out loud. "Of course I will assist you in this endeavor, I will also attempt to speak with Salizar but I fear it will be nearly impossible for him to listen to reason."

Beth quickly placed the letter in the pile with the others that hinted at a vault and picked up another letter. This one was from Godric. "The vault should be located at the center of the school but Salizar wishes to place his own chamber there. I may be able to dissuade him from that but no matter what I say he won't cease the plans for it. I fear what creatures and spells he may leave there." Beth scanned a few lines of text that complained about Salizar and his obsession with the purity of a wizard's heritage. "Rowena, I will assist you in any way I can. I know of many powerful things that could be kept safe within this vault."

Beth scanned through the rest of the letters quickly as she gathered them up to put them back into her page. She had just enough time to get her supplies and get to her Potions class. She had a hard time concentrating on brewing her complicated potion. Balboa bit her leg whenever she was about to do something foolish and kept pulling her out of her thoughts about the letters that were safe in her bag. She could barely restrain the urge to run to Dumbledore's office.

Wednesday evening couldn't come quickly enough. Beth did her best not to run through the hallways and could barely contain herself when she knocked on the office door.

"Headmaster!" She cried out before he had even greeted her. "There _is_ a vault someplace in Hogwarts!" She handed him the selected package of letters. "It's all there!" She said triumphantly. "I still don't know where it is but at least we know that the relics might still be here."

"Excellent work, but you must remember my dear, Voldemort was a student here and it's entirely possible that since he was able to uncover the Chamber of Secrets he was also to uncover the Founders' Vault."

Beth felt suddenly crestfallen and she sank into the chair across from the claw footed desk.

"Don't look so glum, I too have made a few interesting discoveries." Dumbledore was holding a few letters of his own.

Beth sat up a little straighter and leaned forward eagerly as he laid them down on the desk.

"I too found evidence of a vault where the Founders' wished to store powerful artifacts, but they also sought to make it safe from ambitious wizards within their own school." He pointed to a few lines in one letter from Helga.

"Our students are wonderful, but I've noticed some are more ambitious then others and seek nothing but to gain power over their fellows. It saddens me but it is from some of our own students that we must conceal these things. I don't dare to think of what would happen if these things fell into good yet overly ambitious hands."

"I also found a few clues as to its location." He put down another letter. "Rowena wanted to place the vault someplace high instead of in the deep dungeons where Salizar was planning to build his chamber. She also wanted it inaccessible to even powerful wizards." He pointed to another few lines. "What do you think?"

Beth bit her lip as she read over the letter. "Someplace high? Any one of the towers then." She said. "And there are only four towers…"

"Four towers does indeed narrow it down, but we cannot search every brick of every tower and the Vault would surely be guarded against that. I'm almost sure that the Founders would've made the vault invisible except by those who knew where it was."

Beth shook her head fiercely. "But then once they were gone _no one_ would be able to access it!"

Dumbledore nodded. "That is true, to lock the magic away forever was not their intention, but it would still be difficult and I have no doubt fruitless to search every tower inch by inch."

"Are there any more letters?" Beth asked. She was beginning to get frustrated that every lead they got seemed to actually push them further away from their goal. "We have to move fast. There are Death Eaters…"

"Searching for the vault as well." Dumbledore finished her sentence. "Yes, that has been brought to my attention, but I had expected that."

"I believe there are students helping them." Beth was set to name a few names but Dumbledore only nodded slowly and a bit sadly.

"I did expect as much and if that is the case there is very little that we can do to stop them."

"Why not confine them to their dorms!"

Dumbledore smiled gently. "I would have to confine every student to the dorms and that is hardly productive for a school. No, we must simply seek to discover it first. We must also take into consideration that even though the vault itself is located in a high place the entrance could still be anywhere within the castle."

Beth fell back into the chair with a heavy sigh. "This is beginning to look impossible, Headmaster. Every clue we get just leads us farther away from where we're trying to go!"

"Nothing is impossible. It may _seem_ impossible at first but there is always a way to achieve your goals." He gave her an encouraging smile. "Oh, and I must congratulate you on your animagus transformation."

Beth's jaw hit the floor. "What? How? I only managed it once and… I do intend to go to the Ministry; it's just that the test takes months and…"

"Yes, I quite agree." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "Now is perhaps not the best time, you are only a student after all and much too young to have managed it. I'm sure waiting a bit won't hurt. In the meantime," Dumbledore opened one of the drawers in his desk. "There are indeed a few other letters and some very old scrolls that may have more answers."

Beth left Dumbledore's office with her bag loaded with new letters and scrolls to search through. She was trying to decide which of the towers the vault was likely to be in when she heard whispers coming around one corner. Balboa perked up his ears and gave a low hiss. Beth strained her ears to hear what they were saying.

"I told you to be quiet!" A boy's voice hissed. "That passage should be nearby and once we find the vault…" The voice trailed off and it sounded weary and frustrated. It could only be Draco Malfoy's voice. Had he managed to discover a path to the vault? She crept towards the voice and carefully peered around a corner.

Draco was crouching in the shadow of a huge ugly statue with one of his goons hovering near his shoulder. Draco was trying to shield the glow from his wand with the sleeve of his robe. Beth tried to creep closer without being seen.

"There is writing there!" The larger boy said. Beth couldn't be sure if it was Crabbe or Goyle since both of them looked the same to her. They were usually both wearing the same blank, stupid expression.

"Shut up, you dolt!" Draco hissed. "I wish to enter the secret fire!" Draco said firmly.

Beth swallowed a nervous lump as the statue slid out of the way and Draco and his bodyguard disappeared behind it. Beth rushed up the hallway and slid into the passage before it closed, hastily scooping up Balboa and transfiguring her robes to look like dusty rock.

She felt as if the darkness had swallowed her and barely breathing she followed the tiny glow of a pair of wands. The passage went up for a short period of time before it suddenly started to go down.

"That book on the restricted shelf didn't mention this." She heard Draco murmur. "But this _has_ to be the passage. The book said that there was powerful magic here."

Beth made a mental note to try and get permission to read those books again. She couldn't remember reading one that described a hidden tunnel under one of the statues near the Headmaster's office. Swallowing her fear that Draco had discovered the Vault before them, she drew her wand and crept after them.

The tunnel continued to slope downwards but instead of getting colder it started to get warmer and the walls took on a strange orange glow. Beth slowed her pace. "I don't like the look of this." She whispered to Balboa. She dared to get closer to the two boys as they came to a sudden halt. She pressed herself into a crack in the wall, sweating under her robes.

"It's hot." The boy with Draco declared.

Draco hissed something that didn't sound flattering. "This isn't what the book described at all. There wasn't supposed to be a pit!" He said swearing and kicking something that sounded like a stone as it echoed down the path and into what sounded like a deep hole.

A few tense moments later there was a roar that split the silence like lightening and Draco screamed. He pushed the other boy aside and ran back up the tunnel. He was too intent on his escape to notice Beth hiding in her crack. As soon as the other boy had passed Beth rushed out of her hiding place.

A creature she had never seen before was rearing out of the bit. It looked as if it might've been a Dragon but its skin was a sickly, pale, milky white and lacked eyes. It roared again and sniffed the air.

Beth didn't dare stop and stare longer, even though she wished she could figure out what kind of creature it was, she ran after the two boys. The creature sounded like it was following at first but as the passage grew colder it lost interested and its heavy footsteps vanished into darkness.

By the time Beth made it to the statue and pushed her way back into the hallway Draco and his bodyguard were gone. She climbed out of the hole and the statue slid shut once again. She looked down at the base where she could see the words Draco had been studying. There were several lines of Runes and Beth paused long enough to try and decipher a few.

"Hot and Blind, I will wait," was all that she could manage to translate.

"At least he doesn't know where the vault is." She told Balboa as she hurried back to her room to study the newest set of letters. "Although I wonder what kind of creature that was and if it was guarding something."

Balboa regarded her with cool yellow eyes but did nothing but clean his whiskers in response.


	7. Chapter 7: Messengers’ Secrets

**Chapter 7: Messengers' Secrets**

Beth spent a considerable amount of time searching through the newest set of letters and old scrolls that Dumbledore had given to her. Many of them were long boring letters from one founder to another concerning students and how the new school should be organized. There were several that recommended one student or another to stay on and become a teacher since all the Founders wanted to expand their student base beyond what would fit in their small homes.

It would've been very interesting if she had been a historian but Beth wasn't a historian and so most of the letters were boring dead ends. She rolled up another scroll that turned out to be a list of students and their houses and tossed it on top of another scroll that had turned out to be a discussion about creating a hat that would be able to place students in the proper houses once the Founders themselves were dead.

"One of the towers…" She told Balboa as she unrolled another scroll onto her map of Hogwarts. She had added the passage that Draco had discovered and a warning about the creature. She had reported the creature to the Headmaster but Dumbledore had just smiled.

"A giant blind flame lizard I suspect, I understand that they used to use one to heat the Castle. It's still around after all these years? No, couldn't be, perhaps it was able to have offspring. I'll let Hagrid know right away. We may be able to keep these hallways warm this winter." He'd then wandered off in the direction of the great doors that led out onto the field in front of the castle.

Beth sighed and checked the time. She only had a few more hours before her meeting with Dumbledore this week and she hadn't uncovered anything new. She picked up another scroll and unrolled it slowly.

It began with what looked like a diagram or an early floor plan for the Hogwarts castle. She studied it for a few moments, noting several features that no longer existed and several more that she could easily recognize. She finished unrolling the scroll to reveal lines of tiny writing. She squinted and scanned the words.

"Our most trusted messengers will act as our guards. The most simple and easily overlooked, anything more grand would draw unwanted attention." Beth read out loud. "When it is completed only they or one like them will be able to gain access to the inner vault." She looked up and studied the drawing once again. She noticed that one of the Towers was outlined in a different color and several bricks were marked with purple Xs. She shuffled the papers around so she could lay her current map of Hogwarts nearby and compare the two.

"Who are the most trusted messengers?" Beth whispered. "Could it be that blind dragon thing?" She shook her head as she placed the two maps side by side. "A blind fire creature would make a poor messenger."

The answer seemed glaringly obvious a few moments latter. "The Owlery?" She said comparing the two towers. There were a few differences but overall they looked the same. It took a few more minutes before the answer dawned on her. She gathered her things and rushed down to Dumbledore's office.

"The most trusted messengers! It's the owls!" She blurted out before she had explained anything to Dumbledore who was sitting behind his desk with a bemused look. "The entrance to the vault is hidden in the Owlery!"

"Are you certain?" He asked with an amused smile. "It seems rather odd since all sides of the Owlery are open so that the owls may come and go."

Beth unwrapped the two maps and placed them on the desk. "It said that only they or one like them would able to reach the entrance."

Dumbledore regarded both maps carefully for several moments. "This is a wonderful discovery." He said at last. "And it fits well with a few pieces of the puzzle that I discovered during my research."

He passed several folded pieces of paper across the desk. "These are diagrams I found in among some of the scrolls. They appear to show two different tunnels leading from a circular room. If the entrance to the vault is indeed in the Owlery it would explain these diagrams."

Beth unfolded the papers to reveal a complicated set of diagrams that seemed to show a door into a circular room and how it would open and close. It appeared that the designer wanted the doors to switch places on a regular basis. It reminded her of the four doors that led into the Ravenclaw tower.

"It looks like the entrance to the Ravenclaw tower." She said out loud.

Dumbledore nodded slowly. "Yes, I noticed that as well. It would seem to point to Rowena Ravenclaw as the designer."

"Then we know its location!"

"We _think_ we know its location. We have no way of knowing for certain if this was the final plan that they adopted or if it was an early plan that they later decided not to follow." Dumbledore said calmly.

"But, Headmaster!"

Dumbledore raised one hand for silence. "Beth, as you have discovered there are many things in this castle that have been lost or forgotten and many of those things are very dangerous. We cannot simply go rushing into every passage that we find. There is no telling what is lurking around the corner. It could be a room full of socks or indeed a room full of blind fire lizards." Dumbledore was smiling as if he found one of those ideas a rather pleasant one.

"But, Headmaster, the Death Eaters…" Beth protested.

"Are no closer to the answer then they were several weeks ago." Dumbledore assured her as he gathered up the papers. "I do believe that there is a bit more research to conduct before we try to open the vault."

Beth left Dumbledore's office with her shoulders drooping. Beside her Balboa let out a heavy sigh before he climbed up her robe and settled onto her shoulders with a sad little sound. "We can't afford to wait." Beth told him in a whisper. "The first thing we're going to do is make sure that Draco doesn't know where the Vault is located!" Balboa started a low rumbling purr.

Beth rushed back to her room. Jonquil and Hestia tried to get her attention but she muttered an excuse as she flew past them and up the stairs. She pulled out several Copy Quills and made a copy of the diagram with several key alterations. She removed the purple Xs from the Owlery and placed them on the other side of the castle in one of the places where the dungeons hallways went in a few little circles.

"I'll just have to leave this for Draco to find and then we can be sure that he won't be able to find the vault!" She told Balboa as she put the fake scroll in her bag. "And then we're going to take a look at the vault."

Balboa sat up and purred loudly.

Beth hadn't counted on how difficult it would be to get Draco to just pick up the scroll. Draco Malfoy wasn't in the habit of picking up strange scrolls that were lying about in hallways. Eventually she let it fall out of her backpack as she hurried to a class. Draco scooped it up, no doubt with the intention of finding something in it to mock. Beth watched from the around the corner as he unrolled it with a smirk on his face. A moment later the smirk vanished and he rolled it back up and stuffed it into his bag and hurried away with his two minions in tow.

"There," she said to Balboa as they hurried around the corner. "They'll be looking in the wrong place and that leaves us free to go and find the vault!"

Beth spent several nights planning ways to get to the Vault. She decided to wait until most of the students were asleep so that she wouldn't have to worry about any witnesses in the tower while she was tapping on the bricks in the wall. It was harder to plan how to evade Filch and Mrs. Norris.

"We'll just have to take our chances, I guess." She told Balboa as they lay waiting for the proper time.

As the hands of her watch clicked around to midnight she slipped out of bed with her cloak and her wand, slipped down the stairs and out the door. The hallways were deserted at this hour and with her robe transfigured to look like a pool of shadow she slid through the darkness and up the stairs to the Owlery.

She entered the round drafty room carefully. The skeletons of mice and voles crunched under her shoes as she crept towards the well. The owls were awake and hunting at this hour and only a few were perched high above her head in the rafters. She pulled a copy of the diagram out of her pocket and lit her wand. She had drawn her own smaller picture of the marked bricks on the parchment. She walked up to one of the walls and examined it carefully.

She bit her lip; all of the bricks looked the same and there was no telling where the bricks were that needed to be tapped in a certain order. She knew that it was part of the mystery but could the bricks change position as often as the door? There was no telling _where_ the bricks were located or if the door they would open was near the top of the tower by this time. The reverse could've also been true. The correct bricks located near the top of the Tower and the door near the floor.

She looked at her diagram carefully before glancing up at the walls again. "It did say that only the messengers would be able to reach it…" She said slowly, quickly losing heart.

Balboa made an annoyed noise and sunk a few claws into her arm.

Beth bit back a yelp and walked around the room, holding her wand close to the bricks on the walls. On her second circuit she noticed a brick that had something scratched into it. It looked at first like the random scratches an owl might make as it flew past. She bent a little closer and saw that they were not random scratches at all. A few appeared to be an owl and the others looked like they were pointing back the way she had come and slightly upwards.

She tapped the brick and a few feet back she heard a noise. She hurried back along the wall, looking up and noticed that another brick was glowing slightly as new scratches appeared on its surface. She reached up and tapped that one with her wand, listening carefully for the sound of talons on the brick.

She tapped several more bricks, some so high she had to stand on her toes and stretch to reach. She had just tapped the last brick when she heard the familiar grinding noise of a stone door sliding open. She looked around frantically. Across the room a small stretch of wall was rising up to reveal a deeper darkness as she watched it the door started to descend once again. She bolted across the round room, skidding on the droppings and sliding through the quickly closing door.

Balboa yowled as they came to a stop against a hard, cold and damp wall. "Sorry, Balboa." Beth murmured as she held her wand aloft trying to light as much of the room as she could with its tiny light. "Was that your tail? I'm sorry."

Balboa made a low growl before disengaging himself from Beth and landing on the floor. Beth stood up and dusted herself off. The door clicked closed leaving them in total darkness and a grinding noise told her that the bricks were changing places in the walls around her. The thought of trying to find her way out of this tunnel flashed through her mind but she pushed it away and with her wand held out in front of her, began to descend into the tunnel.


	8. Chapter 8: Founders’ Relics

**Chapter 8: Founders' Relics**

The tunnel was narrow and the ceiling so low that Beth had to bend over to fit. It sloped downwards for a long time before it leveled out and remained flat. The floor and walls were thick with dust and cobwebs stretched across their path.

Beth tried to duck around as many as she could but the path of the tunnel forced her straight through several extra thick and dusty ones.

"At least we know that we're the first ones to come down here." She told Balboa as they fought their way through.

They finally came to a halt in front of what Beth thought was a wall at first but she held her wand higher and realized that it was a closed door. She could see the glitter of gilded letters and the silver head of an emerald-eyed serpent gleamed at her.

She passed her wand back and forth trying to get the an idea for what the whole of thing looked like when two large torches on either side suddenly sensed her presence and flared to life. The sudden bright light made Beth shield her eyes and Balboa howled. She blinked several times, trying to see past the glare of the light reflecting off the metal of the door.

When she had finally banished the last of the colored spots from in front of her eyes she looked up at a large set of double doors. Each door had two sets of initials of each of the founders. Godric on the hinge side of the left door and below the gold and ruby eyed lion was Salizar's dull initials around which was coiled the silver emerald eyed serpent. Rowena's initials were at the top of the other door and flying nearby was a bronze eagle with blue sapphire eyes, below was Helga Hufflepuff's black badger with shimmering yellow diamonds set in its eyes. Beside each set of initials was a gilded inverted triangle inside which were engraved several words.

Down the middle of the doors on either side of a small gap were engraved words: "The way will open only to one who knows our ideals well. Pick the one we most hold dear and your way will be clear."

Beth looked inside Salizar's triangle. There were several words, "Pure blood, power, Parseltongue," and several others were inscribed there. She looked over at Helga's: "Hard working, cheerful, equality, unity," along with several others.

Beth stood in front of the door thinking hard. It would do her no good to turn back and try to do some researching on each of the founders. There was no saying where the bricks that allowed access to this tunnel would be when she tried to come back.

She stared up at the door. She didn't want to know what would happen to her if she guessed wrong. She couldn't simply stand in this tunnel all night either. She took a deep breath and made her best guesses. She tapped "Loyalty," in Godric's triangle, "Intelligence," in Rowena's, "Power," in Slytherin's, and "Hard work," in Hegla's.

There were several tense minutes of total silence. Then the torches snuffed themselves out and the door slowly opened with a long grinding sound.

"We did it!" Beth told Balboa as she once again raised her wand and walked forward into the chamber.

The room was lit by several crystals that were suspended from the ceiling and the room was dusty and empty except for a long table with several objects laying across it. Beth stepped forward, her heart soared. The first thing she saw was a large chalice with the initials H.H. on it. She picked it up quickly.

"Look, Balboa!" She said. "He didn't get her cup after all!" She stared at the chalice for a few moments before it struck her that it didn't feel magical in the right way. She had picked up Godric's sword once and a strange power had thrilled up her arm. It had been the same feeling when the sorting hat had been placed upon her head. The chalice didn't send any thrill of power through her hands. She hefted her wand and tapped the rim. In a flash of yellow light the cup changed from ornate to a simple and badly carved wooden cup.

"It's a fake…" She said dejectedly. She set it back in its place and with another flash of yellow light it changed back into an ornate chalice. Beth blinked and looked down the table. She noticed a sword encrusted with rubies. "That's impossible." She said reaching for it. "This is in Dumbledore's office!" She tapped it and a moment later she was holding a rusted old fencing rapier. She put it back in its place and it changed in a flash of red light back into the image of Godric's sword.

"They must all be fakes!" She said in an awed voice, noticing now that there were several copies of Helga's cup, as a matter of fact there was a cup, locket, sword, and shield for every founder in a different place along the table. "They're all decoys!" She told Balboa. The cat meowed, a strange sound that echoed oddly through the chamber. "You-Know-Who doesn't have any of the relics after all!" She shouted into the silence. She could see the spaces on the table where the relics were missing. "If the chamber had been dark, or if You-Know-Who hadn't looked carefully he would've just taken the fakes!"

She looked around, wondering if there was anything else in this room that might give her a clue as to where the real Relics might be hidden. Beth walked around the table and began to examine the walls. Through the dust she could make out what she thought was another door on the back wall but it was locked securely. She brushed away the dust and thick cobwebs to reveal the words.

"Only our trusted messengers may call and pass."

She tried every spell she could think of and yelled every word that she thought might open the door but they remained stubbornly closed. She noticed that through the dust there were several scorch marks on the door. It seemed that someone else had tried to get through the doors a long time ago and from the look of it they hadn't been successful.

"We'll have to come back." Beth told Balboa sadly. "We have to figure out how to open these doors. We just _have_ to get those relics to fight You-Know-Who." Balboa stared at her with bright yellow eyes.

They made their way back into the tunnel and the door closed securely behind them. Beth walked slowly up the tunnel and once she reached the top she tapped the solid wall with her wand. After a tense moment it opened onto a different wall than the one Beth had entered through.

The Owlery was full of owls now and through the glasses windows Beth could see the first traces of the sunrise. She hurried back to her room to try and make it look like she had spent the whole night in her bed and not in dusty old tunnels.

The next day Beth found that it wasn't as hard to stay awake as she feared it would be, she found instead that she had a hard time paying attention in her classes. She was too busy trying to think of how to get through the second door. The answer seemed painfully obvious. She needed an owl to get through the door. But how could she convince one of the school owls to follow her through that dark passage?

She could try to enchant it but post owls were already intelligent and enchanted. If she tried to fool one there was no telling what it might do. She tapped her quill against her parchment and tried to think through Professor Binns' steady droning voice.

She had wanted to get herself an owl but that's when Balboa had decided to walk into her life. She couldn't blame the cat after all, the darn thing did seem pretty intelligent, but what she needed right now was an owl not a cat. Balboa seemed to hear her and let out a low growl and kneaded her thighs with his claws.

She longed to tell Dumbledore but he was assuming that she was carrying on with her research to learn more about how to unlock the vault and what might lie inside of it, not exploring it by night. No, he'd probably forbid her to go into it again and maybe even refuse to give her any more material to research, or even worse, report her for being an unregistered animagus!

Beth stared down at the diagram that she was partially concealing with her hand. What if there was another way in, a different tunnel that would lead beyond that sealed door? "No," she thought with a tiny sigh. "They wouldn't have built two ways into the Vault." She stared at the lines of writing above the diagram. "Only the trusted messengers or one like them." She read in a whisper.

She pondered those words for several moments. "If only I could do the transformation again." She thought, "Although I guess a falcon isn't much like an owl."

Another intriguing thought was that the Founders or someone who had come after them had left behind false relics. It was ingenious really, transfiguring old things to look like the relics and to make so many copies of them. It worried her a bit.

How could You-Know-Who have been fooled by those false relics? "Maybe he was so elated to get as far as he did that he didn't care?" She wondered to herself, absently scribbling a few dates that Professor Binns repeated a few times, as if to make sure that everyone had gotten the chance to copy them down.

There was also the chance that he had never been able to touch one of the real relics and so he wouldn't realize that he was holding a fake. Beth wondered if the transfiguration spell would hold up to whatever spells that _he_ would've tried.

She gathered up her books as the class ended, bid farewell to Hestia and Jonquil and went up to her Divination class.


	9. Chapter 9: Tea Leaves and Tactics

**Chapter 9: Tea Leaves and Tactics**

Beth sat down and unpacked her tea mug, doing her best to clear her mind as she poured her tea. Professor Trelawney told them to put away their interpretation books and to attempt to decide the meaning of the leaves on their own.

"Watch the flower petals." She said in a breezy voice that reminded Beth of Luna Lovegood. "They will try to cloud the meaning but don't allow their fragrant past to cloud your gaze into the future."

Beth drank her tea in a few grateful gulps and then stared down into the tea leaves that were left in her cup. There was the unmistakable image of the Dark Mark.

Beth was suddenly very cold. It could only mean that the school was in danger from Death Eaters! "They're coming! Oh no, what if my ruse didn't work and Draco's found the location of the vault! What if he followed me to the Owlery?" Beth knew that half of her fears were totally unfounded and unreasonable but she couldn't help the cold panic that was making her hands shake.

Before Professor Trelawney could come over and check the results of her cup she quickly poured herself more tea and drank it in one quick gulp. She winced a little as the hot liquid burned her throat. She looked down into the cup. The Dark Mark had vanished and was replaced by a sword, the unmistakable symbol of an army. She turned the cup and noticed that there was also a bird in flight.

"What does the future hold for you, my dear?" Professor Trelawney asked dreamily as she peered into Beth's cup. "Ahh, you will soar, soar!" She said in a satisfied voice before moving onto the two Slytherin girls who were already snickering over their cups.

Beth looked down again. An army of Death Eaters was heading for the school. She had to get word to Dumbledore right away. They couldn't be allowed to get to the Relics! She sat on the edge of her seat until the class was finally dismissed.

"Headmaster!" She practically burst into Dumbledore's office. Dumbledore was sitting behind his desk reading over a long scroll.

"Miss Burke," Dumbledore checked a small silver pocket watch. "I believe you are rather early for our next meeting."

"I'm sorry, Headmaster, but I was just in Divination Class and I saw a Dark Mark in my tea leaves!" Beth realized a moment after she said it that her sentence sounded bizarre but she stared at the Headmaster with frantic amber eyes.

"I see." Dumbledore lowered the scroll he was reading. "It was clear?"

Beth nodded vigorously. "Yes, very clear! There was no mistake. It scared me so I tried to get a different reading…"

"And what did you see when you poured the tea again?" Dumbledore's blue eyes were intent upon her face.

"I saw a sword and a bird in flight." She said wringing her hands together. "The sword is for an army, so that means there's an army of Death Eaters…"

"I have my doubts that it will be army." Dumbledore interrupted her in a calm voice. "But this may give us ample time to prepare for their arrival."

Classes were canceled and students sent back to their dorms. Beth watched from one of the windows in the tower as the teachers added spells to the already shielded school.

"I wonder why they're upping the security again." Abby squeezed into the space next to Beth watching the teachers.

"Death Eaters no doubt or Dementors or something." Hestia murmured with a dismissive wave of her hand. "You know, the _war!_"

Abby sighed. "Yeah, I know, it's just…weren't they doing everything they could before?"

"They must be expecting something to happen." Jonquil said with fear in her voice.

Beth bit her lip. She wanted to tell them what she had seen in her tea leaves but she wasn't sure if that would frighten them unnecessarily. Death Eaters _were_ coming but would they be stopped by the barricades that the teachers were putting in place? Would they even have to know what was going to happen, or was it better if they didn't worry about it until it did happen?

She turned away from the window and sat down on her bed. Balboa was grooming himself on her pillow. The Death Eaters were coming to try and find the vault and Beth wondered if they knew a way to enter the second chamber. She hoped that they were attacking based on the false lead that she had given Draco but she had no way of knowing if it had fooled him or simply pointed him on the correct path.

That evening she poured herself into research. She searched through every letter and scroll that Dumbledore had given to her hoping to find something about the inner chamber before the Death Eaters arrived. She met with Dumbledore almost every night for a week before she discovered a lead in a letter from Godric to Rowena.

"Salizar will not change his mind," she read in a whisper to Balboa. "His section of the vault will have to be enchanted to open only as he wishes as such, only to one who speaks the language of serpents." Beth paused for a moment a cold feeling seeking into her stomach. That meant that You-Know-Who had probably already been able to get Salizar's Relic. She read the rest of the letter quickly. "It is best to conceal the rest of our treasures within Helga's vault or even your own. I suggest creating smaller spaces within your vaults in which you can conceal one of two things." Beth scanned through the rest of the letter and sorted through the messy pile for Rowena's reply.

Rowena agreed with Godric in her letter and agreed to make different locks for each little room that was constructed to safeguard their most precious magic. She also begged Godric to reconsider his decision but she never mentioned exactly what that decision could be but Beth assumed it had something to do with the vaults since Rowena was pointing out the dangers of the world in which they lived.

There was still no clue as to exactly how to open the door but in the last line of Rowena's letter she informed Godric that her spell had worked perfectly and the door would open to a select few "calls." Beth had never really considered the noise that an owl made to be a "call."

She threw down the letter and ran her fingers through her hair. She knew she had to get into the chamber soon or else the Death Eaters might beat her to it and take the rest of the Relics. She tried to tell herself that there was a chance that they were going to follow the false lead or that they didn't know how to breach the inner or outer doors. Beth didn't want to take the chance but it appeared that she wouldn't have to time to consider her other options.

Just as the sun was sinking over the horizon there was a sudden green flash of light and the high scream of an alarm rang through the castle. Hestia, Helen, Jonquil, and Abby crowded around one of the windows.

"They're here and I think they have Dementors!" One of them shouted mournfully.

"It doesn't look like they can get through. We'll be ok…"

Beth didn't wait to hear more of the conversation; she rushed out of the Tower and into the hallway. She was clutching her wand in her hand and started to rush towards the stairs to the Owlery when she was struck with a sudden idea. She changed her direction and skidded through the corridors until she came to the statue that Draco had opened. She pointed her wand at the base and desperately tried to remember the words Draco had used to open the passage.

"I wish to enter the secret fire!" She said and the statue moved aside. Beth ran at full speed down the tunnel only managing to come to a halt in front of the pit just in time to prevent herself from falling into it.

She stared over the edge, sweating from the heat that was rising from the deep hole. She pointed her wand straight down and fired three short shock blasts into the darkness. She waited a moment and had considered firing again when a roar split the air. Beth turned and ran back up the tunnel as the eyeless beast sniffed the air and with another roar followed her up the tunnel.

Beth panted as the tunnel started to get colder and began to shoot blue fire over her shoulder to keep the tunnel warm and sensing the heat the creature that had started to slow its pace once again broke into a run with another deadly sounding roar.

Balboa, who had waited by the statue now turned and streaked towards the exit of the castle and Beth followed quickly behind, trying not to cry out as the creature burst through the floor and the wall. She glanced over her shoulder as she tossed another set of blue flames. The statue was partially shattered and the wall and floor gaped were slightly ablaze.

Beth ran, passing a few students who had dared to creep out of their rooms. They screamed as one voice and Beth hoped they had the good sense to get out of the way as the creature crashed through the corridor. Down one staircase and through another hallway, Beth's heart was thumping in her throat. She could feel the natural heat of the creature almost upon her as she burst through the door and into the cool air.

She was starting to get tired and the air was hot in her throat making it hard to breathe as she poured another double burst of flames over her shoulder to coax the creature out into the snow. She could hear the teachers shouting at her but she ignored the sound and threw more blue flames in a direct path towards the Death Eaters.

She noted that a silvery stag had rounded up the Dementors and was driving them away but she tore her eyes away from the amazing sight and managed to stand to one side as she did her best to keep the blazing fire going.

The creature had paused and Beth knew she didn't have the strength to make the flames hot enough to coax it further into the snow. Her legs started to tremble when more flames joined her own. She looked up and Dumbledore was adding his own blue flames to hers and once the Headmaster had started, all the teachers turned their wands from the shields surrounding the castle to the blue flames that were now dancing in a ring around the Death Eaters.

The eyeless creature roared and charged into the heat, blindly snapping its jaws at the cloaked figures. One Death Eater sought to escape by heading towards the lake, he had almost reached its shore when one of the Squid's long arms appeared and grabbed the poor fellow around the middle and dragged him underwater. The others appeared to be trying to Apparate, which was impossible on the grounds of Hogwarts, and so they merely flickered for a moment before they started to scatter, running this way and that as they tried to escape both the blue flames and the creature that stood in their midst.

Beth lowered her wand. Breathing hard, she watched as the Death Eaters scattered. She'd managed to keep them away from the vault and the school! She looked towards the fire creature that had made itself comfortable in the highest of the blue flames that were being kept fed by Professors Flitwick and Sinistra. She looked down at Balboa who looked up at her with bright yellow eyes and purred.

Beth smiled and suddenly felt very tired. A moment later she felt as if she were falling, something cold hit her in the face and the world went dark.


	10. Chapter 10: The Inner Vault

**Chapter 10:The Inner Vault**

"Oh thank Merlin!"

Beth slowly woke up to feel Balboa purring contentedly on her chest. She looked up to see Hestia sitting next to her.

"You're finally awake!" She said, relieved.

"Huh?" Was the only word Beth could manage to get out of her mouth. She felt exhausted, as if she'd just run miles and miles uphill.

Hestia rolled her eyes. "You collapsed after leading that thing out to the Death Eaters. The whole school is talking about it! What _was_ that thing?"

Beth slowly remembered the battle. "How long was I asleep?"

"Half a day at least!" Hestia said. "I finally talked Madame Pomfrey into letting me come and sit with you and _only_ because I'm studying to be a Mediwizard. Even Dumbledore couldn't talk her into letting Jonquil or Helen or Abby in to see you."

"Dumbledore," Beth said slowly. "The Death Eaters?"

"The lizard thing took care of them, and what _was_ that thing, Beth?" Hestia was staring at her. "Where did it come from?"

"It's some kind of fire lizard." Beth yawned. "I found it underneath the school when I was…" she cut herself off before she relieved anything. "When I noticed Draco slipping into a secret tunnel. I followed him and found it. I told Dumbledore and he said he thought they used to use them to heat the school." Balboa yawned and rolled over, sticking his paws into the air.

Hestia looked like she wanted to ask a question but merely sat silent for a long time. "What's going on?" She asked finally. "I mean, you've been meeting with the Headmaster almost every night this past week and then Death Eaters show up here…" She trailed off, waiting for an explanation.

Beth stared back at her, trying her best not to look nervous. Dumbledore had told her not to share with anyone the fact that they were searching for the Relics since rumors were quick to travel. It had been hard not to talk to her friends about it. Balboa rolled back over onto his stomach and stared into her eyes.

"It's about my animagus training." Beth said slowly. "Headmaster Dumbledore is very good at Transfiguration. He's giving me extra lessons to supplement ones that Professor McGonagall is giving me." It was a lie, another one, but Beth felt like she didn't have a choice. Maybe once everything was over Dumbledore would let her explain things to her friends.

Hestia nodded, looking relieved. "I'm just glad you're not mixed up in anything. You know how Jonquil gets, she's been listening to Luna again and she's gotten worried that you're mixed up in something with the Death Eaters and You-Know-Who."

Beth chuckled. "Jonquil has managed to get everyone else worked up?"

"It was easy after the Death Eater attack." Hestia said sternly. "I should go and see if Dumbledore still wants to talk with you. He wanted to know when you woke up." She got up and walked towards the door of the infirmary.

Beth stroked Balboa absently wondering once again about the room with the fake relics.

"It's good to see that you are awake, Beth." Dumbledore's soft voice startled her and she turned to see Dumbledore taking Hestia's seat next to her bed. "It was a rather interesting idea to turn the fire lizard on the Death Eaters." He said with a grave little smile.

Beth managed a tiny smile. "Where they… did they?" She stammered, suddenly worried at the rather serious expression that Dumbledore was wearing.

"They didn't get past the front door." Dumbledore said. "However I have confirmed today something that I had expected all along. I'm sure you suspect that the Relics have significant power and not just from the fact that a few of them might be Horcruxes. I had suspected that Voldemort was attempting to gather them because they contained such powerful magic." He paused long enough to adjust his glasses. "I have discovered, as I both feared and expected, that all four of the Relics must be in the same place to cast a very powerful spell."

"Isn't that good news?" Beth asked, suddenly less weary than she was a moment ago. "It means You-Know-Who can't cast the spell!"

"Yes, but neither can we, and as far as our sources tell us Voldemort is in possession of at least two of the Relics. Salizar's locket and Helga's chalice."

"I don't think he has, at least…" Beth realized she'd spoken too quickly. She hadn't meant to tell Dumbledore that she'd tried to enter the Vault but from the inquisitive look on Dumbledore's face she wasn't going to get away without telling him the rest of what she had been about to say. "I entered at least part of the vault and there are fake relics there. I noticed a few were missing…"

"I had suspected that you would not wait." Dumbledore said with a smile. "Fake relics you say?"

"Yeah, there's a long table that's laid out with things and they're all just old things transfigured to look like the relics. There's Godric's sword, only it's just an old fencing rapier, and there are chalices for every single Founder and I'm sure they're all just old wooden cups that were transfigured."

Dumbledore looked thoughtful. "That is indeed good news, although if the things that Voldemort managed to steal were counterfeit his spells would not have worked on them and he would've been trying to attain the real thing as quickly as possible." He turned to look at one of the paintings. "You said you'd only entered part of the vault?"

Beth described the other door to him and her suspicion that only an owl would be able to open the door.

"But the letters we have make note that there are several smaller vaults within each of the Founders' and that Salizar wished to have his own key to his vault." Dumbledore noted. "I have a suspicion that he may have used Parseltounge to seal his vault."

"That means You-Know-Who could have his relics!" Beth said mournfully.

"I do believe that at one time he was in possession of Slytherin's locket." Dumbledore nodded slowly.

"At one time?" Beth said catching the words.

"Yes," Dumbledore mused. "I am not so sure that he is still in possession of the genuine relic. I cannot be sure of this but I have my suspicions."

Beth thought about it for a few moments. "We have to get into those vaults!" She said, setting her jaw into a determined line.

"Yes, we do." Dumbledore agreed. "I suggest once you are released from Madame Pomfrey's care that we meet to discuss when we shall enter the vault."

"We'll need an owl." Beth said automatically. "I don't think we can get into that inner vault without an owl."

"We shall see," Dumbledore mused, "In the meantime, Beth, I would like you to think about your transformation."

"My animagus transformation?" Beth said in a startled voice, she had almost forgotten that Dumbledore knew. "But Headmaster…"

"I would you to be prepared for anything that might be in those vaults." Dumbledore said simply. "I wouldn't practice it here, simply think about it and try to remember what caused you to make the change in the first place."

Beth agreed and Dumbledore departed. Hestia came back into the room and told her that Madame Pomfrey had agreed to let her leave the infirmary tomorrow afternoon provided that she got enough sleep. So Hestia tucked Beth into her blankets, told her not to worry about homework because Jonquil and Helen were making sure to keep copies of all their notes and then left her alone.

Beth spent most of the night trying to recall what had happened that day in the cave outside Hogsmede. She could only remember panicking and the strange sensation that she was shrinking. Eventually her exhaustion got the better of her and she fell fast asleep.

Beth left the infirmary the next afternoon and spent most of the free time it afforded her trying to catch up with the work she had missed. Jonquil and Helen were very helpful, giving her ideas and topics for her essay in Potions and a crash course in two new charms. Abby leant a hand in doing a bit of the research for Beth's Potions essay and then agreeing to allow Beth to interpret her tea leaves.

That night Beth went to dinner with her friends and was immediately bombarded with questions, congratulations and awed stares. Hestia made a valiant effort to allow Beth to eat her dinner in peace but it only partially worked.

By the time she left the Great Hall, Beth felt like she had explained the fire lizard a hundred times. She left out the part about seeing Draco sneak down into a secret passage. She wasn't sure why but she was sure that if she told about one so easily found everyone would try to locate it or even search out others. Beth was sure she didn't want to know about many more forgotten secrets in the old castle, especially ones that would make Hagrid ecstatic.

She wondered idly for a few moments as she walked towards Dumbledore's office if Hagrid had named the fire lizard yet. Dumbledore met her at the entrance to his office and with a letter in hand they walked together to the Owlrey.

"I have asked for the loan of a very intelligent owl." Dumbledore assured her as they climbed the long stairway up to the Owlery.

They entered together and Beth looked up, searching for the scratched brick. The sun was setting and many of the owls were flying through the wide open windows to start hunting. A snowy owl flew down and landed near Dumbledore. Beth thought it looked familiar and a moment later she realized that this was Hedwig, Harry Potter's owl.

"Here we are." Dumbledore said happily as he tucked the scroll into his robe. "We shall need your help, Hedwig, I hope Harry has spoken with you about this."

Hedwig blinked her amber eyes and made an understanding noise.

"Excellent." Dumbledore smiled over at Beth. "Lead the way, Miss Burke."

Beth was still searching the walls wondering if the marked brick was too high for her to see. She finally spotted what she thought was the correct brick behind one rather fat tawny. "Up there." She said, wishing for several moments that she could remember what she did in order to transform herself into a bird. "The scratched brick." She pointed.

Dumbledore looked up and pointed his wand at the brick, it glowed as if it had been tapped and then a brick at Beth's waist level began to glow as new scratches appeared on its surface.

"I see," Dumbledore said, assisting Beth to press the bricks that were too high to reach. Finally the door appeared, only this time it opened at level with Beth's chest. This amused Dumbledore greatly and they both hoisted themselves through the door and into the dark cobwebby tunnel.

Hedwig flapped her wings and made several annoyed noises from where she had perched on Dumbledore's shoulder. Beth walked forward with confidence and arrived at the first door. She waited for Dumbledore to read the inscriptions.

"Ahh, I see, very clever." He said with admiration as he reached up with his wand and touched the correct words. Beth opened her mouth but then closed it with a snap.

"Of course he knows," she thought, "He's been Headmaster here for ages!" She had wanted to impress him by opening the door so she hurried into the room and picked up one of the fake relics that sat on the long table. "These are the fakes." She said tapping one with her wand, revealing a locket to be a tarnished silver chain.

Dumbledore took the chain from her and studied it carefully before placing it back down and watching the spell take effect once again. "Interesting." He murmured looking up and down the table. "However there are too many different of each relic, one would assume that some of them are fake."

Beth hadn't thought of that and she felt her shoulders sag a bit. "I hadn't thought of that." She admitted.

"Oh and I doubt any regular thieves would pause to give it much thought." Dumbledore assured her. "But you spoke of an inner vault?"

Beth brightened. "Yes!" She said and hurried over to the back wall where the four seals were engraved. She cleared the dust away and studied it hard for the first time. She was hoping to find the magical seals intact and unbroken, it would mean that You-Know-Who hadn't managed to get his hands on some of the relics after all. She felt her heart sink, as she stared at Salizar's seal. There was a carving there of what she was sure was supposed to be two snakes intertwined, but one of them was missing, as if it had crawled out it's place and when she looked down she noticed that it had curled itself around what looked like a carved door handle.

"Oh dear," Dumbledore was staring at the seal as well and he seemed to have come to the same conclusion as Beth. He tapped on the seal and the snake reared its head and hissed but Dumbledore tapped the snake and it shrank back and the door swung open. It revealed a tiny room with a small empty pedestal.

"He's got it." Beth said. She had never felt so disappointed. She watched as the door closed and the snake shifted a bit but remained around the handle. She quickly turned away and looked at the other seals. They all seemed to be intact. She felt a surge of joy and triumph. "But he didn't manage any of the others!"

"Hmmm," Dumbledore stared hard and then reached out his wand and tapped gently on Godric's seal. There was a sound of moving stone and then the door swung open. Beth took a startled step back before she stared into an empty vault. She felt her heart sink again but Dumbledore smiled. "It seems Godric's vault was never locked."

"Because his things are in your office!" Beth said, catching on quickly as the stone door swung shut again.

Dumbledore nodded and tapped Helga's seal. There was the sound of shifting stone again and Beth felt her heart sink once again but Helga's door didn't swing open, instead Beth heard a strange sound coming from the other side of the room. She turned and noticed that the door that had entered from was guarded on both side by two stone owls.

The eyes of the two stone owls were glowing red and their heads turned to fix upon the two of them. "Headmaster!" She cried, clasping her wand tightly.

Dumbledore whirled as the eyes glowed brighter. Beth tried to think quickly of something she could do, some shield she could conjure but instead she had the sudden feeling that she was shrinking and a moment later she was rising above the owls' line of sight. For a split second she was exhilarated; she had managed to transform again! Then just as quickly as the feeling had come it was replaced by fear – the Headmaster couldn't change into a bird, he would be caught in the owls' fire.

Beth gave a keen trilling cry of dismay. There was the sound of grinding stone and Helga's door opened, Dumbledore slipped inside and at once the eyes of the two owls dimmed and faded until they were unobtrusive stone once more. It had all happened so fast Beth could hardly think of exactly how she managed to transform.

Beth flew down and suddenly she felt like she was stretching. A few seconds later she landed in an undignified heap on the floor.

"Headmaster!" She called breathlessly as she entered the small stone chamber.

Dumbledore gave her a proud smile. "Very good!" He said, patting her shoulder. "I shall offer you my deepest congratulations."

"Thank you." Beth said in a small uncertain voice. "I panicked." She admitted.

"The important thing is not what you felt but what you did. You did solve our mystery, one that Hedwig would've been able to solve as well." The snowy owl was sitting on the table outside the small chamber, hooting impatiently. "It appears that a bird's call is the only way to open the Vaults." He looked at the stone pedestal in the center of the room. "And it appears that Voldemort may have indeed been fooled by one of the relics."

Beth looked at the pedestal. She was expecting to see a gold cup engraved with Helga Hufflepuff's seal but instead she saw a large shield with two large Hs in the center surrounded by a badger with yellow diamond eyes.

"A shield?" Beth murmured, staring hard at it.

Dumbledore was already examining it closely. "This is indeed Helga Hufflepuff's," he said sounding amazed. "So it appears that Voldemort did not manage to steal that relic after all."

"That means he only has one!" Beth said triumphantly.

"We must check the other vault first." Dumbledore said, stepping out of Helga's. Beth followed quickly and the door closed behind them. "Say something for us, will you, Hedwig?" Dumbledore said as he tapped Rowena's seal. Hedwig gave a tired hoot and the door swung open with a flourish.

In the center of this room, which had a rather odd shape and strange out-juttings in the walls, was another pedestal on which sat a bronze cup engraved with a large pair of Rs and an eagle with blue sapphire eyes. Dumbledore entered and made a quick inspection.

"Yes, it appears you are correct, Beth," he said stepping out again and allowing the vault to seal itself again. "We are in possession of three of the relics."

"Shouldn't we take them?" Beth asked, wishing to open the doors and look at them again. She was ecstatic. All but one of the relics was here, in Hogwarts, safe in their hands.

"No, they are safest here. If he was unable to get them before he will be unable to get them now." Dumbledore said firmly. "We are still missing Salizar's locket and we must find it."


	11. Chapter 11: Unregistered Animagus

**Chapter 11: Unregistered Animagus**

Beth lay awake in her bed thinking about the vault. You-Know-Who had only managed to get one of the relics after all. She listened to Balboa purring gently next to her pillow. She had wanted to go after the locket but Dumbledore had forbidden her to do so.

"It's far too dangerous to try and retrieve it alone. I have little doubt that it is very well guarded and you must remember that the Death Eaters are wizards that have many more years of experience than you and at least one is an unregistered animagus." He shook his head. "No, it's far too dangerous. You have already helped considerably and you may continue to help. There is much work to be done reading through the scrolls about the enchantments and spells that could be enacted with the relics."

Dumbledore had talked at considerable length about the many different kinds of spells that his research showed the relics might be able to cast. Beth couldn't help but be fascinated by it but that didn't stop her from wanting to search out the last relic.

The biggest obstacle was the fact that she still had classes. There was something inside her that wouldn't let her simply run away from Hogwarts to go plowing through Death Eaters in search of Salizar's locket. She wanted to finish her education here; there were so many things left to learn. She punched the sheets in frustration.

"There's just no time!" She hissed to herself as she rolled over. She thought once again about the relics that were tucked away in the vaults of the Owlery. A single passage in a misplaced history had implied that Rowena's relic was indeed a Chalice, and it had been correct; she could still picture Helga's black and gold shield. She wondered if perhaps Salizar's relic wasn't a locket after all. She sighed and stared at the deep blue velvet of her bed curtains. There were always too many possibilities.

Beth spent a considerable amount of time reading old letters and scrolls trying to find clues about the magic that the relics contained. She also spent a lot of time trying to repeat her transformation and long hours with Professor McGonagall begging her to transform into a cat and to explain how she managed to do it.

Every passing day made her worry that the Death Eaters would somehow find a way to breach the vault and she found herself wanting to go check at every spare moment that the relics were all safe. She was determined not to give away their secret locations with her paranoia. She instead decided to learn exactly how she had managed to accomplish her animagus transformation.

Every opportunity she was alone she concentrated hard on her animal form, as Professor McGonagall had suggested, and tried to imagine her body shrinking into that of a falcon. It never seemed to work, or if she thought it was working she got so excited that she lost her concentration.

She remained at Hogwarts over the Christmas break, politely but firmly declining Hestia's invitation to come to her home over the holidays. She had planned to spend a great deal of time in the library searching through old history books about the Slytherin house and Salizar himself. She also intended to try and use the lack of other students to practice her animagus transformation.

She hadn't counted on the fact that Draco Malfoy wouldn't go home for the holidays either. She cursed as she saw his name on the list.

"He must still be searching for the vault." She told Balboa as she hid herself away in the library, pouring over a few books that she had selected and a few that Madame Pince had selected. She peered around every so often just to make sure that he hadn't followed her into the library and several times she noticed him pretending to be studying a book at a distant table.

"Damnit!" She hissed as she shuffled the books and hid their spines and titles as she passed him on her way back to Madame Pomfrey's desk. "He's following me, I know it!"

Balboa made a curious little noise and stared at her with his bright yellow eyes. Beth sighed and hurried back to her room.

It was hard to avoid Draco Malfoy, but one clear cold day she stood at the edge of the Forest, out of view of the castle and Hagrid's small hut. She spent a long time staring at the impossibly blue winter sky trying to imagine flying through it.

She looked around one last time making sure that no one was watching before she concentrated hard on her body shifting and changing. Finally she closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself changing into a falcon.

She stood for a long time in the cold snow before she felt a strange shrinking sensation in her legs. She bit back exhilaration and concentrated on the feeling and slowly she felt herself change. She finally allowed herself to let out an exhilarated cry as she flapped her wings and soared into the sky.

It was harder to think now and her eyes kept darting downwards, tracking every small movement. She circled once before heading back towards where she had left Balboa sitting in the snow when her eyes caught something moving quickly across the snow. It looked like a boy and he was running full speed towards the castle.

Beth didn't manage a landing; instead she transformed several feet above the ground and fell in a heap into the snow. She scrambled to her feet and breathless with fear she ran towards the castle. Her eyesight wasn't as keen anymore but there was no one else with hair that pale.

"Draco!" She said as she scooped Balboa out of a snow drift. "He saw me!" She ran towards the castle but by the time she reached the doors Draco was gone. She stood panting for a few moments, knowing that even if she had caught him there would've been no way to deny it and any threats she made would have easily made the situation ten times worse.

She hurried towards Dumbledore's office. The Headmaster needed to know and perhaps he would let her explain a few things to Professor McGonagall. Surely if the two of them were on her side and it looked like she had just done it for the first time the Ministry wouldn't make charges against her.

"Headmaster!" She said as she rapped on the door louder than was necessary. It opened a second later and she rushed inside. Several of the portraits paused whatever they were doing to give her long and perhaps annoyed stares.

"Headmaster!" She panted again.

Dumbledore was checking his silver pocket watch. "That's ten seconds faster than the last time." He said, impressed, "My dear you must stop running all the way to my office. There are better ways to get exercise." He said with a warm smile.

"I managed my transformation! I did it! Just now!" She said quickly.

"Wonderful!" He clapped his hands together. "That is indeed progress! Managing your transformation in your last year is quite an accomplishment!"

"I think Draco Malfoy saw me!" She said not bothering to thank him for the compliment.

Dumbledore smiled. "I don't think that will be a problem, unless he's seen you make the transformation before."

Beth paused for a moment to think. Not unless he'd seen her transform that time at the cave in Hogsmede. She suddenly felt herself go pale.

"I think he saw me, not transform, but already transformed, in a tree…" She said slowly.

Dumbledore sat for several moments looking thoughtful. "It would be difficult to prove that two birds seen in two different places are the same person but we shouldn't be too careful. You go inform Professor McGonagall and I will inform the Ministry."

Professor McGonagall was thrilled with the news and bustled her straight back to her room to gather her traveling cloak.

Dumbledore bid them both a fond farewell as they stepped into the fireplace of his office. Beth was still trying to protest but Dumbledore only smiled more warmly at her.

"Don't worry about a thing, my dear, you'll manage just fine." He said as Beth's vision blurred and she was speeding through the Floo Network.

Beth felt like screaming long before they were done at the Ministry. It seemed that in a time of war the process no longer took months, but it did take several hours and Beth had to do the transformation several times for at least three different experts. She wondered if it was an attempt to discover if she was a fake or trying to disguise her animal or her markings. She had nearly bitten one man with her sharp beak as he'd prodded her with the sharp end of his quill.

By the time they were ready to leave Beth was dizzy and sporting several new bruises. Professor McGonagall looked a bit miffed herself at the whole process.

"Simply ridiculous!" She muttered under her breath as they stepped into the fireplace and emerged back in Dumbledore's office. "Nonetheless, fifty points to Ravenclaw for your transformation."

Beth met Balboa back in her room as she flopped down onto her bed with a groan. She fished out her bruise salve and applied it to several places on her stomach where that damned man had poked her too hard with his quill.

"At least I'll have something to tell the others when they get back and now that I'm registered I'll have to practice flying!" She told Balboa as she lay back on her bed.

She lay thinking about it for several long moments. Once she could fly she could go almost anyplace that she wanted to. Suddenly an idea struck her and a smile slowly lit her face. She could go search for the locket over the next break. She didn't have to go home, a well placed letter and she would be free for the entire summer.

Next to her head, Balboa purred loudly.


	12. Chapter 12: The Missing Locket

**Chapter 12: The Missing Locket**

Beth did enjoy the look on Hestia's face when she told her about the transformation and the fifty points. She had to show everyone her small certificate and then she had to demonstrate the transformation once for them and then several more times in the Common room for the rest of the Ravenclaws. Word spread quickly throughout the school and Beth marveled at the amount of practice she was suddenly able to get in transforming. The first several times it had been very difficult but the more she did it the easier it became. Of course it also made her very tired and a little bit dizzy to change back and forth from human to falcon.

Finally she simply couldn't do it anymore and hurried back to the Ravenclaw tower, leaving her friends in the Great Hall to ward off everyone else. She sat down on her bed and tried to look at a few scrolls Professor McGonagall had given her to study about other animagus wizards. The words seemed to dance over the page by themselves and so Beth gave up trying to read and closed her eyes.

Now no matter what Draco claimed he wouldn't be able to get her in any trouble with the Ministry and they wouldn't bother to investigate her, especially since she'd arrived with Professor McGonagall insisting Beth had just managed the transformation a matter of hours ago. Beth felt a bit bad at having a teacher lie about it but Beth wasn't about to tell the whole truth about her transformation to a triune of Ministry wizards.

It worried her though that Draco knew what her animagus form looked like, he would've found out once the rumors had finished going around the school and he certainly must've seen her in the Great Hall this evening. It worried her because she was sure he was connecting her with the bird he'd seen in the tree that Hogsmede weekend.

She felt her stomach sink at the thought that he would be sure to inform his mother and his aunt. It wouldn't be very long before all the Death Eaters knew exactly what Beth looked like in her animal form. She suddenly wished she hadn't told her friends once they had returned from their holidays. It was fun, being congratulated by other students, even ones she didn't know very well.

She did her best to pass through the rest of the term without thinking too hard about Draco, the Death Eaters and Salizar's locket. It seemed too strange for her that Salizar would have a locket for a special heirloom. She thought about it for a long time before she came to a theory that she could accept. It could be that the locket contained very powerful dark magic, Slytherins were supposed to be very sly and cunning after all, why wouldn't Salizar place a powerful spell on something everyone least expected? It could also be, and this was Beth's backup theory, that the locket You-Know-Who had discovered was a fake.

Beth didn't really _want_ that locket to be a fake since if it was a counterfeit she had no idea where to start searching for clues about the real relic. It all made her head spin but she spent long hours in the library anyway, searching for clues about Salizar's relic. She came across several books recounting a history of the Slytherin house and various famous witches and wizards that had gone on to do great things. Beth noted that You-Know-Who wasn't mentioned but that was really only to be expected, not many people knew that You-Know-Who had once attended Hogwarts under the name of Thomas Riddle.

The book, however, pointed very clearly to the fact that Salizar had left behind a locket but the book seemed unsure if the locket had been locked away in Salizar's vault or passed down within his family. She found another book on Hogwarts that gave the name of a former headmaster who had locked the locket away in Salizar's vault at the behest of the family.

"It must be powerful." Beth whispered to Balboa as she sat in the library with her customary pile of books. She stuffed the Slytherin history book underneath the others with a careful glance around the room. Draco Malfoy hadn't yet made his appearance today but Beth had no doubt that he would be in sooner or later. There weren't yet any other Slytherins around as there had been the past couple of weeks and Beth suspected that Draco was employing spies to watch which books she read. She made sure to gather up as many Transfiguration and Divination books as possible each time she entered the library.

"It really must be something if his own family wanted it locked away." She whispered as she flipped through the book searching for more clues as to its whereabouts. She knew that there wouldn't be anything in the history about where You-Know-Who had hid it but she hoped to learn something about the magic contained inside it. She could perhaps trace it with her own magic. Powerful artifacts gave off an aura that was not easy to disguise. Beth opened another book about tracing and locating ancient magical artifacts and made some more notes.

The spells didn't look difficult; they were just complicated and usually involved certain phases of the moon and sometimes potions that a replica of the object needed to be dipped into. That wasn't going to do her much good since she didn't know exactly what the locket looked like. She had a pretty good idea that it bore his initials and that it was most likely made out of gold but apart from that she had very little idea.

Balboa gave a low yowl and Beth looked up as Draco Malfoy entered the room. She stuffed the book she was reading back into the pile and picked up a particularly boring looking book about Human Transfiguration and set about doing her transfiguration essay for Professor McGonagall.

When she left the library she gave her pile of books to Madame Pince who took them and started shelving them at once. She hung around the desk chatting with her as the books flew towards their shelves and only left when the last one had shelved itself at the back of the library.

Beth was starting to feel more secure with the knowledge that she had gathered from the letters given her by Dumbledore and the time she had spent in the library. She had made up her mind weeks ago that as soon as the term ended she would go searching for Salizar's locket. She didn't dare tell anyone about her plan; she merely refused all offers for spending the summer holidays at the home of one of her friends. She kept to one story that her parents had planned a vacation.

Beth was having a hard time thinking about her parents and her friends. It was odd to remember that this whole adventure had started on Halloween and here it was almost summer once again and she hadn't so much as wondered if they were worried about her. "It was all a dream, that bit about being a Muggle?" She was asking Balboa one morning over breakfast. Balboa only purred in response and ate a piece of her bacon.

The rest of the term went by quickly as Beth tried everything to try and discover where You-Know-Who had hidden Salizar's locket. The best that she could come up with was that he had entrusted it to one of his Death Eaters. Beth wondered if that hadn't been a bad move on You-Know-Who's part, what if that Death Eater had tried to escape from him?

They didn't last very long if they did, Beth had overheard Dumbledore talking about one of the family of Black that had deserted You-Know-Who and had been killed less than three weeks later.

"It was a bit strange, don't you think, the way that the Death Eaters killed one of their own so ruthlessly?" Dumbledore was saying to someone in his office as Beth waited outside the door. She had raised her hand to knock but had paused when she heard voices.

"You-Know-Who is ruthless to his enemies." A deep voice was saying. "To betray him means death and we've seen it time and time again."

"But to strike down someone who had been loyal up until then…" Dumbledore murmured.

Beth held her breath, waiting to hear more but then the other deep voice bid Dumbledore farewell and Beth knocked on the door, hoping to catch a glance of the person that Dumbledore had been talking too. As she entered the comfortable round office there was only a flash of green flame to mark the stranger's passing. Dumbledore was sitting at his desk and smiling at her as usual.

"Ahh, Beth, have anything new to report?"

"I didn't mean to interrupt your meeting, Headmaster." She said quickly, hoping Dumbledore would volunteer some information.

"It was an impromptu meeting and he had his own business to attend to, nothing to be concerned about." He gave her a warm smile and Beth could tell that there was nothing more she would be able to get the Headmaster to tell her about whoever had just been in his office.

Over the course of the rest of the term that was plenty more research in the library and piles of old letters to read. Most of them were very dry, boring epistles from one Founder to another or from one Headmaster to another, or to teachers and sometimes even to students about the running of the school.

There were one or two letters about wards and spells that had been placed around the Vault or the Chamber of Secrets. She put those aside and read them over carefully once she had pushed through the main bulk of the other letters.

She was heartened when she discovered a trove of Salizar Slytherin's letters that discussed his students, his house, and the magical spells he intended to teach only to them. He bemoaned in several letters the fact that he was unable to teach his students Parseltounge.

Beth found that very amusing but she was more intrigued in a few letters written to his wife about his locket and the spells he intended to place on the object. He seemed to be very careful not to write down the exact nature of the spell, which was very frustrating. He was also very vague about what the spell was going to do but it was a start anyway and she was able to get a few descriptions that she was sure would help her to locate it.

As the term ended Dumbledore told her that he would keep in touch with her by owl over the summer. That made Beth rather nervous and she told him that she intended to be traveling with her family who were muggles. Dumbledore assured her that his owls would be able to find her no matter where her family happened to be taking their holiday.

"I'm sure your family is used to owls by this time."

"Yes, of course!" She said with a hasty smile. She suddenly wanted to tell him of her plan but she knew that he wouldn't approve so she thanked him and said that she would look forward to his correspondence.

The train ride back to King Cross station was fun even if Hestia kept insisting that Beth should just tell her family she was going to stay with friends for the summer. Beth managed to politely refuse the offer multiple times and caught the Knight Bus back to Diagon Alley. She took a few essential things in her maroon duffel bag and stored the rest in her vault at Gringotts.

She enchanted her bag to be very light to carry and nestled Balboa inside. He stuck his head out the time and stared at her with his bright yellow eyes.

"Don't worry; I have a few places I think we can look first." She said as she searched for an out of the way spot where she made her transformation and taking the bag which seemed to weigh nothing at all she took to the sky.

Balboa nestled down into her robes and started to purr. Beth barely caught the sound through the whistling wind and cold mist.


	13. Chapter 13: Hiding Place

**Chapter 13: Hiding Place**

The first thing that Beth discovered about flying was that it was very tiring and the second was that while she was a Falcon she had this terrible tendency to want to catch and eat rabbits. She had also learned that no matter how warm the air was near the ground it was much colder the higher she flew.

There was also the small problem of food. Beth had forced herself to pack light and so had only brought a very limited amount of supplies. Balboa seemed happy to go hunting for mice or small birds and Beth knew from the limited amount of research she'd done on Falcons that they ate much the same but Beth wasn't sure she was ready to try her hand at hunting.

Beth was also frustrated with her slow progress. Flying was faster then walking, it was true, but she couldn't even begin to reach speeds that she would've been able to make on a broom. She checked her map by the light of her wand every night, always discovering that she hadn't flown half as far as she would've liked.

"I don't know how we're going to manage to cover all this ground." She said mournfully looking at the too-distant marks on her map.

Balboa didn't seem at all perturbed by their slow progress and stretched himself out on top of her spare robes in her duffel bag.

Throughout the summer Beth dealt with one frustration after another. She had believed that once she'd reached one or two of the places she'd marked on her map she would find clues that would lead her to her next destination or give her a new destination entirely. This was not the case. Her first few stops came after long, exhausting flights and after long amounts of research and questioning jumpy wizards and witches she was left with nothing. No clues that would send her to the spot where Salizar's locket was hidden.

She did manage to gather a few clues but those were few and far between. She learned a little bit about the Riddle family and how they had all died at the hands of Tom before he had become widely known by his other name. She also learned that very few people wanted to speak of anything that had to do with You-Know-Who and thus her investigation had met an unforeseen obstacle. She had expected that it would be difficult to extract information out of people concerning this Dark Wizard and his followers but she hadn't expected as strong a reaction as she received. Wizard and Witches would go pale and slam their doors or look quickly around before hurrying away from her as fast as their feet could travel. In a few rather memorable cases the witch or wizard had Apperated at the first mention of the Death Eaters.

Beth wanted to hang around Malfoy's place and spy but she was sure Draco would've told his parents what she looked like as a bird and it would do no good to try and hide in a tree near a window. No matter how much she knew she could learn if she went there, Beth stayed away. It would do Dumbledore no good if she were killed while she was in bird form.

She had a feeling that the Death Eaters would know where the locket was hidden – even if Voldemort hadn't told them, someone must've had some idea – but she had an even harder time tracking down Death Eaters. She knew that wouldn't be easy but she had thought that she would hear people talk of a thickening of the mist on certain nights or the Dark Mark rising above homes in the dead of night. But there was nothing, not even rumor; it seemed that most people were doing their best to forget the danger that was all around them.

Beth also spent as much time as she could digging up old books in out-of-the-way bookstores, both Muggle and wizard. She had learned from Dumbledore that Muggles often had interesting information about wizards and it was precisely because no one believed what they wrote.

"It is very surprising how often they are correct." He said in a rather fond tone of voice. "It rather seems a shame that no other muggles believe them."

This research was a bit more fruitful in that it provided her with a small bit of information about Salizar and his locket. It wasn't much, mostly exaggerated rumors about a strange man and his over-fondness for his locket which the author assumed was a powerful talisman. The author was correct of course but most of the other theories in the book were nothing but interesting if rather funny reading.

There were very few books written by wizards detailing Horcruxes. Beth had been unable to gather very much information at Hogwarts apart from what Headmaster Dumbledore would tell her and the single book in the library that held scanty information on the subject. It was dangerous magic and so it was a forbidden topic. Beth could understand the reasoning, any spell that involved murder was as bad as the Unforgivables but it made it very difficult to gather any information. She had no idea if the effect of turning an object into a Horcrux would affect its magical signature and, it seemed, no way to find out.

However the locket had been affected by its new magical properties Beth knew it would probably be very well hidden but it was _where_ it was hidden that bothered Beth.

She shuddered to think that he kept it on his person. She told herself over and over again that it didn't make sense to keep a Horcrux close to one's person since the entire point was to safeguard a piece of one's own soul.

There were the occasional letters from Dumbledore that were delivered by rather harried looking owls. No matter where Beth happened to be at the time, the owls would find her and the envelopes were always addressed as if Dumbledore were following her movements. "Miss Beth Burke, second hostel on Brathbury Street, Manchester England."

It made Beth a bit nervous but Dumbledore never hinted at knowing anything beyond what she had told him when she had left school for the summer. "Hope you and your family are enjoying your holidays." The letters usually began, "I'm sure you've found time to continue your research in a most unobtrusive manner. I've discovered a few things that might interest you."

There were variations, especially when Dumbledore complimented her on a bit of information that she'd pulled from an obscure Muggle or wizard source. "Marvelous the things you can find in Muggle books," one later read fondly, "I wish I could devote more time to the quest of searching through Muggle libraries myself."

The letters were always interesting to be sure, but they rarely gave her any clues as to the location of Salizar's locket. The first letter hinted at the fact that You-Know-Who was not actually sure of the location of the locket himself. Beth felt her hands shake as she read those words.

"That means we have a good chance of getting it back!" She told Balboa as they sat in the room of a small wizard inn that Beth had located completely by accident. She had been looking for a place to stay within the town when she stopped at what looked to be a little coffee shop. It was strange since no one passing seemed to notice the brightly colored signs in the windows that advertised a variety of cool drinks when it was such a warm day. Beth had wandered inside and found out that it was in fact not a _Muggle_ coffee shop at all.

She'd been able to get a room and directions to a small wizard library that a young witch had set up out of her home in the country. Beth spent several days there, searching through several rooms crammed with books, looking for anything that could give her a clue on how to track modified magical objects.

After that letter from Dumbledore she'd redoubled her efforts and with a little help from a friendly old wizard who thought she wanted to search for old enchanted galleons on the beach, she managed to get a spell working that was fairly good at tracking magical objects.

She spent several hours modifying the magical detector that looked a bit like an overlarge compass with several extra hands. It was very late when she finished her modifications but she didn't go to sleep, instead she spent several more hours starting to brew a potion that would enable her to use transfigured objects to track the actual object. The books stated that potion was good within an acceptable margin of error and although Beth found many volumes on tracing magical items she didn't fail to notice that many never mentioned a success rate.

Beth left the potion to simmer when she went to sleep and it was mid-afternoon before she woke up to find that Balboa was watching the cauldron intently. She hurried to get dressed and rushed downstairs to secure herself a tray of something to eat. She managed to get some breakfast leftovers and the very beginnings of the roast chicken that was to be for lunch and rushed back upstairs. She set aside some chicken and bacon for Balboa as she gently stirred the cauldron.

"It looks like it's almost done." She said taking large bites of scrambled egg with toast. "I'll just have to transfigure something to look like Salizar's locket." She started to search through her things. Her excitement dimmed a bit as she realized that she didn't have anything suitable. "The potion will sit for two days before it becomes unusable." She said checking the piece of paper on which she had scribbled her notes. "I suppose that's enough time to find some old locket but I'll need time to transfigure it properly." She was gathering up her money pouch and cloak when Balboa gave a curious little meow and rushed out the door.

Beth didn't think much of her cat's disappearance since he tended to do it rather often when she was at Hogwarts. He would usually return grooming his whiskers and cleaning his claws. Beth spent the remainder of the day searching the city for a used jewelry shop. She found a few and one that was even run by a sweet old witch but she couldn't find any old lockets that were the correct shape. She did return with two that were at least close to correct shape.

She sat down on the bed and set about trying to transfigure the first. It went rather poorly and although the locket no longer looked like the tarnished old heart shaped thing she'd bought it didn't look a thing like Salizar Slytherin's except for perhaps the fact that it was now gold, but the heart now looked like a misshapen potato rather than an oval.

Beth sighed, pushed it aside and pulled the other one close and started again. She was about to give up in frustration when Balboa pushed his way through almost closed door and jumped up onto the bed. Beth looked up and was about to shoo him gently out of the way she noticed a gold chain, green with tarnish dangling from his mouth.

"What did you find?" She asked as he dropped it on top of the other two. She scooped it up quickly. It was an old locket, badly tarnished, had broken hinges and the gems were all missing. The important thing was that it had exactly the same shape as the sketch of the locket that she had made in her notes.

"Balboa, where did you manage to find this?" She asked excitedly as she tossed the other two lockets off the bed and set this new one down on top of the several sheets of sketches with which she had been working. Balboa purred and blinked his yellow eyes lazily as he curled up by her feet.

It took several hours but when she was done Beth had an almost exact replica of Salizar Slytherin's locket.

"There!" Beth said as she placed the final finishing touches on it. "Now someone would have to look really closely to tell the difference." She scratched Balboa behind the ears and took the locket over to her simmering cauldron. She dropped it into the maroon liquid and watched as bubbles rose to the surface and the liquid slowly turned a tawny beige color. Once the bubbles had stopped she carefully levitated the locket out of the potion and dropped it onto the magical detector.

The hands spun and whirled for several moments before swinging back and forth widely between north and south. Beth watched carefully as one hand finally centered on East and another settled on "several miles distant," and a third settled on, "concealed." The other three hands wavered back and forth between several words concerning the age and power of the object. One of the three finally managed to settle itself on ancient and then the second settled down on "dangerous dark magic," but the third couldn't seem to decide between strong or weak magical aura.

"That's promising." Beth said as she flopped back onto the bed exhausted.

It took almost another week before the hand on the magical dial ceased pointing to several miles distant and began to point towards, "Very close," and Beth began to get nervous. She wasn't sure where she was in relation to Diagon Alley and she feared she wouldn't be able to make it back in time for school. The summer was almost over and she hadn't yet found the locket.

"I can't go back without it." She told Balboa as she penned a hasty letter to Dumbledore concerning her research. She detailed her thoughts on a magical detection device and the merits of the potion that one could use to track artifacts for lack of anything else to write about. She hadn't done any more research since she had begun to search for the locket in earnest.

She had begun searching the town since now whenever she walked the hands on the compass moved back and forth and the final hand was now pointing to, "In this general area." She walked quickly through the streets holding the compass in front of her watching the hands swivel back and forth.

"It's close." She told Balboa one night as the sun was beginning to set. The hand was beginning to inch its way towards, "right here," and Beth started to get excited. She quickened her pace and didn't bother looking up as the compass led her down a dark alleyway. The hand finally slid over and came to a rest over, "right here," in the middle of the alley.

Beth stopped and looked around. She was in the middle of a narrow alley between two buildings. It was dark and dingy and looked to be the kind of place where one did not wander alone at any time. She swallowed hard and got a grip on her wand before she started to sweep the area around her with her compass. The needle that had been pointing to West stopped shifting when she aimed it at one of the grime covered walls.

Balboa was sniffing the wall and Beth bent down and ran her hand over the cold, wet bricks. "Do you think it didn't work after all?" She wondered aloud as she bit her lip nervously. She had spent long exhausting days in flight to make it to this spot before school started. She looked down at the compass again and noticed that one of the hands was still pointing towards, "concealed."

She ran her wand along the wall until one of the bricks gave a faint glow. Beth felt her heart beat quicker as she mumbled a few spells until the brick slid inward revealing a small hole. Beth tried a few more spells until more of the wall opened to reveal a small cavity where someone had stashed several old looking pairs of clothes, silver goblets, dishes and several expensive looking bits of jewelry but nothing that looked like Salizar's locket.

Beth sorted through the pile quickly, fearing that the wizard who hid these things would come back. She noticed that several were embossed with the Black family crest and Beth started darting glances up and down the alley to make sure that there was no one in sight.

Balboa walked into the cavity and started pawing through a pile of necklaces that had become tangled in each other as Beth pushed several silver goblets noisily to one side. A few moments later Balboa meowed loudly and pawed at an old, tarnished necklace that looked as if it had been thrown into a fire several times, or used as some young witch or wizard's experiment.

"Is that it?" She asked picking it up quickly and she shivered as a jolt ran up her arm. She stuffed it into the pocket of her jeans and tossed her replica into the hole. Balboa climbed up onto her shoulder and Beth closed up the hole and hurried out of the alley, checking the magical compass. All the hands were now pointing to, "in possession."

She breathed a deep sigh of relief as she rushed back towards the motel where she'd rented a room. It was a Muggle motel so she would have to be careful about her magic but she had to make sure that she had the correct piece of jewelry. It certainty felt like the right thing since she could almost feel the magical thrumming from inside her pocket.

She slammed the door of the small room behind her and set the locket down on her bed and yanking her wand out of her pocket she fired off several spells. The locket glowed green for several moments before its image wavered.

"It's transfigured!" She said almost holding her breath. She bent down slowly, her wand shaking with her hands as she licked her lips to moisten them. She could feel the excitement making her nervous as she carefully spoke the words for the spell. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the shape of the old locket began to change and the tarnish melted off to reveal shining gold. Within moments Salizar Slytherin's locket was lying on her bed.

Beth let out a long breath and stared for a long time before she wrapped it up in a spare shirt and stuffed it into her duffel bag. "Come on, Balboa," She said, gesturing to her bag. Balboa obeyed and climbed in, setting one paw, claws out, on the shirt that hid the locket. "We have to get back to Diagon Alley so we can get back to Hogwarts."

Even though the sun had already set, Beth hurried out onto the street and started running up the streets. As soon as she had come to a dark enough patch of street she checked up and down before she changed into a Falcon and grabbing her bag in her talons took off into the sky.


	14. Chapter 14: Regulus’ Secret

**Chapter 14: Regulus' Secret**

Beth was exhausted by the time she managed to reach Diagon Alley. It had been a four day journey but Beth had flown as many hours out of those four days as she could manage. As far as she could tell she had slept perhaps one or two hours each day.

She was barely coherent enough to tell Old Tom, the innkeeper at the Leaky Cauldron that she wanted a room for the night and to wake her when the Knight Bus left for King's Cross Station the next morning.

It was difficult to wake up the next morning but Beth staggered out of bed and managed to retrieve her trunk from her vault at Gringotts and get to the Knight Bus, and from there to King's Cross Station. Finally she staggered up the steps of the Hogwarts Express, hauling her trunk behind her as she searched for an empty compartment.

Luckily Hestia located her partway through her search through the train and helped her drag her trunk into the compartment.

"Geez, Beth, it's called a holiday for a reason! You look wasted!" She remarked as they finally managed to stow Beth's trunk away.

Beth flopped down on the seat. "I did a lot of traveling." She said trying not to yawn. "It takes a lot out of you. I had to rush around this morning, I almost missed the bus!"

Hestia nodded as if she just remembered something. "I always forget that your parents are muggles and don't Apparate or port key anywhere."

"I don't Apparate yet and neither do you." Beth mumbled, scratching Balboa behind the ears.

Hestia looked embarrassed. "My dad's been teaching me." She mumbled. "I got to try a bit over the summer."

"You got to Apparate?" Beth sat up and stared at Hestia, instantly jealous. "You lucky little…"

Hestia was blushing. "I mean I didn't splinch and it's really easy…I mean as soon as we start taking the classes you'll pick up on it really quick!" She said in one breath.

"Beth will pick up on what really quickly?" Jonquil had appeared and was hauling her trunk into the compartment.

"Apparating." Beth said glaring at Hestia who was attempting to get Jonquil engaged in a conversation about their upcoming classes.

"Oh yeah, I suspect you will." Jonquil said trying to carry on two conversations at once.

Hestia shot Beth an imploring look and so Beth swallowed the rest of the planned conversation and with a sigh settled into a discussion about the summer in which Hestia avoided any mention of being able to already Apparate.

"Must be nice living in a Pureblood family." She told Balboa in a whisper. "Get to practice their magic all they want! I wonder what other spells Hestia knows that we don't."

Balboa opened one eye, yawned and then curled up in her lap and went back to sleep.

It was all that Beth could do not to fall asleep during the sorting. She woke up a bit when dinner was served but found herself almost falling asleep again once desert rolled around. She did manage not to doze off in her pudding and as soon as the feast was over she rushed towards the head table.

"Headmaster!" She called, "Can I meet with you? I have some important news!"

Dumbledore had been talking with Professor Flitwick and he turned to Beth after a few moments. "Ahh, Miss Burke." He was smiling as usual. "Yes, I believe I have some time. Shall we say, in my office fifteen minutes from now?"

Beth wanted to tell him that it couldn't wait but she nodded and turned to hurry back and join some straggling Ravenclaws. She turned to look around the Great Hall and noticed that Draco was giving her an odd stare. She swallowed hard but did her best to ignore it and made her way towards Dumbledore's office.

She half expected Draco to follow her but as she waited in the hallway he didn't seem to be anywhere in sight. She breathed a sigh of relief as Dumbledore walked up the hallway towards her and with a smile he stopped in front of the ugly gargoyle.

"Almond Fudge." He said and the gargoyle bounced down off its pedestal allowing the door to swing open.

"Now, my dear," Dumbledore said as he led the way up the stairs and into his office. "What is so important? Something interesting in your research I hope."

Beth waited until they were inside his office and the door was safely closed. She reached into her robe and pulled out the locket that had been thrumming against her breast for the entire train ride and most of dinner. It had managed to keep her awake, at least mostly, but every time she closed her eyes strange visions would dance in front of them. She had to admit she felt better now that it was sitting on Dumbledore's desk and not in her breast pocket.

"I found it." She stated simply watching the shocked expression on Dumbledore's face turn into a more serious one as he took the locket from her and examined it closely.

He shook his head and gave her a gentle smile. "I suspected that this is what led you all over England this summer." He sighed. "It always seems that the more you tell someone to stand still the more they will do their best to move around." He put the locket down on his desk and reached for his wand. "Although you put yourself in grave danger by searching for this." He tapped it gently with the tip of his wand. "We do not even know if this is the real one."

Beth had been holding her breath and she slowly let it out. "But Headmaster, the power…"

"That could easily be a concealing enchantment. We shall see if this is in fact Salizar's locket or not." He tapped the locket with his wand again and it floated into the air and hovered over Dumbledore's desk. He said a few strange words that Beth didn't recognize and suddenly the locket began to glow.

Beth had to shade her eyes as the light went from green to dazzling white. She could hear the portraits complaining and a few loud hisses and pops told her that this strange magical energy had also affected a few other things in the room.

Beth wanted to cry out, it felt like her skin was crawling with bugs and she heard Balboa give a plaintive and annoyed yowl. She was about to call out to Dumbledore when the light began to fade and the locket clattered to the desk.

Dumbledore looked rather surprised. "Where did you find this?" He asked sitting down slowly.

Beth took up the other chair and related the story of her summer. She glossed over several details but managed to maintain a fairly accurate retelling.

"Do you still have the Locating Compass?" Dumbledore asked when she had finished.

Beth fished through the pockets of her robes and pulled out the compass. A few of its hands spun around to point towards the desk as Dumbledore took it from her.

"A marvelous piece of magic." Dumbledore said after a few moments. "Although I wonder if the things you discovered were stolen. Could you tell me exactly where you found it?"

"Stolen?" Beth thought for a moment. "I'm pretty sure I could show you." She said slowly. "Stolen, Headmaster? What do you mean?"

"I mean we had a theft from Grimmauld Drive. One Mr. Munndungus stole several items that had belonged to the late Sirius Black and his brother Regulus." He said thoughtfully. "I don't suppose you saw any strange wizards lurking around?"

Beth shook her head. "No, the alley was empty when I found it."

Dumbledore nodded slowly "I suppose you didn't see anything in that flash of light?"

"It was a bit green at the beginning." She admitted. She hadn't really bothered to pay attention to the flash of bright light.

"Yes, and I imagine that the locket did not look like this when you found it. If I read the spell correctly it had been transfigured to hide its magical properties and give it a different form." He looked down at it. "It also had a few other interesting Dark Magic spells protecting it and a signature appeared in the light."

"Signature?"

"Yes," Dumbledore was staring at the locket. "Sometimes if a spell is particularly good or if a witch or wizard wants to leave their mark they can sign their spell. The letters R.A.B. were visible for a few moments. There are many to be sure but I suspect that it stood for the late Regulus Black." He paused and looked hard at Beth. "This locket has indeed been used to create a Horcrux and it's a wonder, Miss Burke, that your finding it did not attract Death Eaters."

Beth stared at the locket for a few moments. "You mean Regulus didn't destroy the Horcrux?"

"We don't know if it was indeed Regulus Black but yes, the Horcrux is still very much intact." Dumbledore was now eyeing the locket as if it were an unfriendly dog about to bite him. "We will have to destroy it ourselves before we can attempt to enact any spells of protection."

Beth felt slightly ill now that she knew she had been carrying around a piece of You-Know-Who for several days. "Wasn't Regulus Black a Death Eater?" She shook herself and stopped staring at the locket that was sitting serenely on Dumbledore's desk.

"Yes, he was. He joined the Death Eaters when Voldemort was just beginning to rise to power." Dumbledore also seemed glad for the slight change of topic. "He however chose to leave the Death Eaters after he had been given the Dark Mark." He shook his head. "He only survived three weeks I believe."

"Do you suppose that he had been told to hide the locket by You-Know-Who and when he defected he took it with him?"

"Perhaps." Dumbledore admitted. "Perhaps that is the case and if it is, he did not die in vain."

"Is there a way we could find out if it _was_ Regulus who hid the locket?" She asked after a few moments.

Dumbledore looked thoughtful. "I will have to discuss this with the current owner of Grimmauld Place." He said after a few moments thought. "Then perhaps we can search through what is left of his belongings although I don't know what we'll find." Dumbledore stood up and picked up the locket. "In the meantime, Beth, I ask that you do your best to stay out of trouble."

Beth didn't find it very hard to stay out of trouble since she had so much research to do. She spent a lot of time trying to find out information about the Black family. She managed to uncover one book that had been written only about ten years ago that detailed the rise and supposed fall of You-Know-Who. It listed the known Death Eaters and how many of them had been imprisoned in Azkaban and the few who had avoided imprisonment by claiming that they had been put under the Imperious Curse.

It only had a short paragraph on Regulus Black detailing how he joined the Death Eaters early on but then for reasons unknown defected and was killed shortly thereafter. Beth shut the book and returned it to the pile that sat next to her.

"That wasn't all that helpful." She told Balboa in a whisper, looking around to see who else had come into the library. There was a bushy haired Gryffindor who buried in her own pile of books and sitting next to her was a red haired boy that Beth recognized as one of the Weasley family. He looked rather bored.

She looked over her other shoulder. There were several younger Ravenclaws clustered around a table fretting over three or four Potions books. There were no Slytherins in sight and more importantly there was no Draco Malfoy. She pulled another book out of her stack and flipped through it scanning for references to the Death Eaters or to the Black family.

She had gathered perhaps a handful of clues about Regulus Black. She had what she had gleaned from the recent history book and a few from articles in old Daily Prophets that she found stashed away in the back of the library. It wasn't much to go on and it didn't seem likely to her at least that Regulus Black had seen the light when he had defected from You-Know-Who.

It appeared that he had gone to Hogwarts and been sorted into Slytherin, "like most of his family," the article had noted. It seemed that sometime after his seventh year he joined the Death Eaters. Apparently he was from a family of Dark Wizards who supported wholeheartedly the rhetoric that You-Know-Who was spouting at the time. As far as Beth could tell, it didn't make any sense that he should suddenly decide to leave.

"We'll have to wait for Dumbledore." She told Balboa as they left the library and caught up with Hestia and Jonquil who were on their way to dinner.

Beth was surprised at the short time that Dumbledore took to get back to her. Just two days later Dumbledore called her to his office yet again.

"I've gotten permission from the owner of Grimmauld Place for you to go through Regulus' things." He told her as she sat down in the cushy chair opposite his desk. "Some Ministry Aurors are already there making sure that everything is safe."

Beth frowned, she would've liked the chance to go through Regulus' things before a bunch of Aurors had taken away everything that they considered "dangerous." "When can I go?" She asked.

"It's safer if we investigate things here." Dumbledore said. "I'm going to have several boxes brought here and you'll be free to examine them in this office."

Beth wanted to argue but she suspected it would be fruitless to try. "Wouldn't it be easier for me just to go there rather than have everything brought here?"

"The owner of Grimmauld Place also wishes to go through a few of Sirius Black's belongings. It's safer for both of you to do so here." Dumbledore said with a smile. "There is also the small matter of the Order of the Phoenix using it as a headquarters. You must understand that security is very tight."

"They don't want kids snooping around." Beth thought to herself.

"So you understand it would be better for all concerned if the searching is done here." Dumbledore said and rose from his chair. "If you have nothing else to add I'm afraid I shall have to leave you. I have some pressing business that needs attending to." He gave her a short bow and swept through the office and out the door.

Within the next day Beth received a note from Dumbledore. "The boxes have arrived and are waiting for you in my office. I'm afraid I shall have to leave the searching to you, please let me know if you discover anything interesting."

Beth wondered why Dumbledore had decided not to be there when she sorted through the boxes. He had seemed rather intent on it being safe and she wondered if there would be a team of Aurors waiting for her once she got there.

She arrived to find that only Fawkes was waiting for her. The phoenix was sitting on his perch and ruffled its feathers in greeting when she and Balboa walked through the door. There were several dozen boxes stacked in each corner. Beth went over to the first set and found them all to be labeled "Sirius Black."

She left those and went to the other side and found the boxes labeled, "Regulus Black" were considerably fewer. She moved one to the floor, opened it and started to search.

She found that it was mostly clothing with the odd strange artifact here and there. There were a few boxes of what looked to be real diamond cufflinks and another with several rings, all set with different gems and bearing the Black family crest on one side.

The first few boxes went by fairly quickly and Beth was starting to wonder exactly what it was that she was looking for when she opened a box and found it full of letters. She started to sift through them carefully, scanning their contents for clues about why Regulus had left the Death Eaters.

Many were letters that Regulus had received from his parents congratulating him on one thing or another, some asked him to take care of his cousin Bellatrix who was in the same house as he at Hogwarts. In short many of the letters told her very little other than the fact that Regulus himself was rather sly and crafty when it came to getting what he wanted.

"Typical Slytherin." She noted but then she came across an interesting letter. It looked to be one that Regulus had written but never sent. It was addressed to his brother Sirius. She flipped it open and began to read.

It seemed that it was a letter to his brother concerning You-Know-Who and made careful note of how lucky his brother was to be in Gryffindor, away from the people who were taking up the banner of this new leader. It went out for at least a page about how he felt himself drawn to this leader but terrified at the same time. Regulus feared that You-Know-Who was heading this group of wizards merely to act out his own vendetta.

There was one other unsent letter from Regulus where he stated that he had been entrusted with something and he was sure it was a test but he feared for his own life. The letter went on to list apologies to his family and to his brother. "I know that by doing this I have killed myself but I don't believe that I have any other choice. He would make himself immortal and I cannot imagine the lengths he will go to reach his ends."

She carefully laid the letters aside and sorted through the rest of the boxes. There was nothing else except for one more unsent letter that she found buried beneath old O.W.L and N.E.W.T scores. The letter seemed to have been addressed to Sirius but his name had been crossed out and no other name substituted. The rest of the page seemed to be blank but Beth ran her wand over it and muttered a spell.

Slowly writing began to appear, filling the old parchment. This letter detailed how Regulus planned to hide the locket in an old case of jewelry. He intended to transfigure it into another shape and then disguise the aura around it since he wasn't sure exactly what You-Know-Who had done to it but it was more than just a Relic of Salizar Slytherin and that much he knew.

Beth bundled her three letters together and put the boxes back in order. "Come on, Balboa." She called to the cat who had sat himself at the base of Fawkes' perch. As usual the phoenix seemed unperturbed by the intent stare. "Let's go, we have to check these out."

The cat reluctantly got to his feet and as Beth pushed the last boxes back into place the door to the office opened and in walked a boy Beth knew she would recognize just about anywhere.

It was Harry Potter.


	15. Chapter 15: Home Again

**Chapter 15: Home Again**

Harry stopped just inside the door when he caught sight of her and Beth didn't like the look on his face.

"What are you doing here?" He demanded before Beth could even utter the words "Good morning."

"Doing research," she said defiantly. "Dumbledore sent me a note telling me to come here to search through some boxes." She held out Dumbledore's note for Harry to see.

Harry crossed the room, snatched the note from her hand and scanned the two lines of writing quickly. His expression changed from angry to confused before it crossed right back into suspicious.

"How do I know you're not a Death Eater?" He demanded as he thrust the note back at her.

"How do I know you're not?" She demanded, snatching it back and crossing her arms over her chest.

He glared at her for a few more minutes before he relented. "What did you find?" He asked.

"Just a few letters." She said dismissively. She would rather have revealed her find to Dumbledore, especially since Harry was being rather rude. She also gathered that Dumbledore had neglected to tell Harry about her and her research or at least he hadn't shared many details and if that was the case Beth wasn't about to start breaking the news.

Harry was glaring at her but he took a moment to glance around the room. "Which boxes have you searched?"

"Just those." She said pointing to Regulus' boxes. "I'm working with Dumbledore on Salizar's locket." She did her best not to clutch the letters tighter in her hand. Balboa had noted that they didn't seem to be moving quickly and so he settled down to watch Fawkes once again. Fawkes regarded him for a few moments before tucking his head under his wing.

Harry glanced over at the smaller pile of boxes before looking back to Beth. "Salizar's locket?" He asked.

Beth wanted to roll her eyes at him but she stopped herself. "We're trying to find the Founders' Relics." She said in an even tone. "Salizar's locket was one of them."

"You've found it? Where is it?" He demanded, taking another step towards her with a strange gleam in his eye.

Beth was grateful that she didn't actually have it. "Dumbledore has it." She said standing her ground.

Harry deflated and looked back towards the large stacks of boxes. "Do you know where the others are?" He asked after a few moments.

Beth spent a few moments staring at him. Dumbledore hadn't told him? "Yes, of course I do." She said a moment later wishing now she had an excuse to leave. He was starting to freak her out.

"You do?" He rounded on her once again. "You know where the other relics are?"

Beth took a step towards the door. "Yes, we found them."

"Where are they?" He demanded.

Beth wanted to tell him to look on the shelf where Godric's sword was sitting in plain view. "They're in the vault where the Founders left them. Dumbledore thinks they'll be safest there." She said instead, deciding that she didn't want to try the slightly insane look in Harry's eyes.

Harry contemplated this for a few minutes. "Do you know where the vault is?"

Beth could tell where this was leading. "Of course I do." She said taking another few steps towards the door.

"Take me there!" Harry demanded, staring at her with wide green eyes.

"No!" Beth almost yelled, startling a few of the portraits who were whispering to each other.

Harry looked stunned. "The relics are there, we have to go and get them!"

"Dumbledore left them there for a reason." Beth said sternly. She had thought the same thing but she wasn't going to let Harry bully her just because he was a Gryffindor. "They're safer there then they are anywhere else. The seals were intact when we found them so You-Know-Who never was able to use them."

Harry stared at her as if he didn't fully understand what she was saying. "Where are they?"

"In a hidden vault in the Owlery." Beth said. She knew that even if he knew that much he wouldn't know how to gain entrance to the vault.

"Do you know how to get in?" He pressed.

Beth had now managed to gain the door but she didn't rush through just yet. "Yes." She put her hand on the door handle. "But I won't tell you."

"Why not?" Harry demanded furiously.

"Because if Dumbledore didn't tell you I'm certainty not going to. The relics are safer in those vaults than they are with us or even with Dumbledore. If You-Know-Who wasn't able to get them back then he won't be able to get them now." Beth said as she turned the door handle.

Harry looked frustrated and turned on his heel and stalked over to his pile of boxes.

"Come on, Balboa." Beth said as she walked out the door. The cat trotted up to her with his tail held high and followed her out the door.

Beth couldn't help but feel bad about refusing to tell Harry. "He was so rude!" She said as she tried to justify her actions to Balboa was busy cleaning his claws as he sat on her bed. "Besides if Dumbledore wanted Harry to know that Dumbledore would've told him!"

Balboa purred in response.

A few moments later an owl flew through the window and landed on her nightstand. Beth knit her eyebrows in confusion as she took the note from its beak and read it.

"Beth, please come to my office immediately to share your discoveries. I have very good news. Albus Dumbledore." She read aloud to Balboa. The owl hooted and then took off out the window.

Beth and Balboa arrived at the office only a few moments later. Harry was sitting in the chair opposite Dumbledore's desk and some of the boxes had been removed.

Dumbledore smiled when he saw her. "Have a seat." He said waving his wand and another seat slid out of a shadow. "Now that you are both here I shall share the good news. The Horcrux in the locket has been successfully destroyed." He smiled at both of them. "Beth, what did you discover?"

Beth wasn't sure she wanted to share what she had discovered with Harry Potter but she just focused her attention on Dumbledore. "I found these letters." She said laying them down on Dumbledore's desk. "It seems that Regulus had second thoughts once he had become a Death Eater and he feared for his life. He took the locket knowing it was more than just a priceless magical relic and then conspired to hide it."

"An interesting discovery to be sure." Dumbledore was scanning the letters as he spoke. "Then Regulus did us all a great favor." He looked at both of them very seriously. "I shall need you both now. It's time to go and retrieve the relics so we may borrow their magic."

"How did you discover where the relics were located, Professor?" Harry asked as they all made their way towards the Owlery.

"I had a great much assistance from Miss Burke in locating their whereabouts. It was her hard work over the course of two terms that led us to their location."

Beth was rather gratified to see Harry looking so dumbfounded. "That'll teach him to be so rude to me," she thought as they climbed the stairs.

"You also should thank Beth since she is the one who single handedly located and returned Salizar's locket to us." He led the way into the cold, round room. The sun was just starting to set and many of the owls were preparing to take flight.

Harry looked over at her and Beth noted that he looked rather impressed. "You found the locket?"

"Yes." She said. "And I practically had to fly all over England to do it."

Dumbledore chuckled. "Now, Harry, you locate Hedwig while Beth and I attempt to locate some bricks."

Harry walked up to one of the walls and called up to his snowy owl as Beth found the first scratched brick. It was near the floor this time, tucked away and nearly out of sight. They pushed them all in short order and the door opened, this time behind them and slightly higher than Dumbledore's head.

"Ahh." He said with a beaming smile. "It appears different places every time. Well, then, up we go!"

They hauled themselves through the opening before it closed and then down the cobwebby hallway through the large gilded doors. As they stepped through into the cool, stone chamber Harry took a moment to examine the counterfeit artifacts that lined the long table. Hedwig landed on a rather tall goblet.

Dumbledore was already examining the door to Helga's vault. "Hedwig, say something for us, if you please." He said as he tapped the stone with his wand. Hedwig hooted and the door swung open. Harry was staring in disbelief as Dumbledore walked in and retrieved the large shield, handing it to Harry.

"Hedwig made it open?" He asked, staring at the shield in his hands.

"Another bit of research we owe to Beth." Dumbledore was tapping on the stone door of Rowena's vault as Hedwig set up a whole chorus of hoots. "She solved the riddle of how to open these vaults; if there is no bird call those two stone owls over there back the door will fire a rather nasty little spell." He stepped into Rowena's vault and picked up the chalice. "Thank you, Beth, for helping us retrieve the relics." He handed the Chalice to Harry. "Go and see to Hedwig, will you Harry?" Dumbledore said with a smile.

Beth was about to follow Harry out of the vault when Dumbledore spoke again. "I have one more thing for you, Beth." He said and tapped one of the strange out croppings in the wall. The stone shifted and a small opening appeared. Beth bent down to peer inside and Balboa hopped up and stared with her into the darkness. It was a small tunnel but it looked wide enough for an owl to fly through. It sloped down into darkness getting wider as it moved away from them.

"What's down there?" She asked as she stood up. "Do you want me to fly through it?"

"Yes," Dumbledore said. "I want you to fly through." He stood back and Beth noted that he hadn't really answered her question.

She shrugged and transformed, full of curiosity as to what kind of magic lay through the passage.

"Be careful." Dumbledore said as Beth hopped through the opening and spread her wings and started to glide down the passage.

Balboa jumped up to the hole and looked back and forth between the darkness and Dumbledore.

"Go on." Dumbledore waved his hand. "She'll need your help after all."

Balboa meowed and jumped into the passage.

The passage sloped downwards for a long time getting broader until Beth couldn't see both sides through the darkness. She flapped frantically as it suddenly started to slope upwards and changed her course; beating her wings faster as she felt fresh air on her face. She was about to give a cry of excited joy when a strange feeling washed over her. She suddenly felt as if she was transforming back and then everything became a blur and went dark.

Beth opened her eyes as Alanna opened the front door.

"_There_ you are!" She said. "What took you so long? Did you hit like ten more houses or something?" She stood aside to allow Beth to walk inside.

Beth opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again as memory started to blur as if she had just woken from a dream. "I…I…sorry, I must've lost track of time." She stammered as she entered the house, noticing for the first time the weight of the bag in her hand.

"I'll say!" Alanna murmured. "Was that last house good? What did you get?"

Beth opened her pillowcase and looked inside. There were no strange letters sitting on top of her pile of candy. She reached down and picked up one of several silver wrapped candies. "A sherbet lemon." She said, reading the label.

"Weird." Alanna said and turned and walked towards the living room.

Beth walked up the stairs to her room late that night with her pillowcase full of candy in her hand. The evening had been spent trading candy and arguing over who had secured more but Beth had been wondering if it had all been a dream.

"I guess it had to be." She said to herself as she pushed open her bedroom door. She flipped on the light switch and paused as she looked at her bed.

There was a tortoiseshell cat sitting contentedly on top of a wand. Balboa looked up at her and purred, his bright yellow eyes half closing in contentment.

**The End**.


End file.
